278 Professor Flower [April 18, 



earliest race of which we have, or arc ever likely to liave, any know- 

 ledge, which inhabited the southern portion of the African continent, 

 but that long before the advent of Europeans n2)on the scene, they 

 had been invaded from the north by Negro tribes, who, being superior 

 in size, strength, and civilisation, had taken possession of the greater 

 part of their territories, and mingling freely with the aborigines, had 

 produced the mixed race called Hottentots, who retained the culture 

 and settled pastoral habits of the Negroes, with many of the physical 

 features of the Bushmen. These, in their turn, encroached upon by the 

 jDure-bred Bantu Negroes from the north, and by the Dutch and 

 English from the south, are now greatly diminished, and indeed 

 threatened with the same fate that will surely soon befall the scanty 

 remnant of the early inhabitants who still retain their primitive type. 



At present the habitat of the Bushman race is confined to certain 

 districts in the south-west of Africa, from the confines of the Cape 

 Colony as far north as the shores of Lake Ngami. Further to the 

 north the great equatorial region of Africa is occupied by various 

 Negro tribes, using the term in its broadest sense, but belonging to 

 the divisions which, on account of peculiarities of language, have been 

 grouped together as Bantu. They all present the common physical 

 characteristics typical of the Negro race, only two of which need be 

 sj)ecially mentioned here — medium or large stature, and dolicho- 

 cephalic skull (average cranial index about 73*5). 



It is at various scattered places in the midst of these, that the 

 only other small people of which I shall have to speak, the veritable 

 pygmies of Homer, Herodotus, and Aristotle, according to Quatre- 

 fages, are still to be met with.* 



The first notice of the occurrence of these in modern times is con- 

 tained in " The strange adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh in 

 Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola, who lived there, and 

 in the adjoining regions near eighteen years" (1589 to 1G07), pub- 

 lished in ' Purchas his Pilgrimes ' (1625), lib. vii. chaj). iii. p. 983 : — 



" To the north-east of 3Icmi-Kesoch, are a kind of little people, 

 called Matlmhas ; which are no bigger than Boyes of twelve yeares 

 old, but very thicke, and live only upon flesh, which they kill in the 

 woods with their bows and darts. They pay tribute to Mani-Kesoch, 

 and bring all their Elephants' teeth and tayles to him. They will 

 not enter into any of the MaramhcCs houses, nor will suffer any to 

 come where they dwell. And if by chance any Mararaha or people 

 of Longo pass where they dwell, they will forsake that place and go 

 to another. The women carry Bows and Arrows as well as the men. 

 And one of these will walk in the woods alone and kill the Pongos 

 with their poysoned Arrows." 



* The scattered information upon this subject was first collected together 

 by Hamy iu his "Essai de co-ordination des Mate'riaux re'ceranient reeueillis sur 

 Fetiinologio des Ne'grilles ou Pygmees do I'Afrique c'quatoriale," 'Bull. Soc. 

 d' Anthropologic de Paris,' tome ii. (ser. iii.), 1879, p. 79. 



