PRIMITIVE EUGENICS 35 



money was paid. They were also prohibited from 

 transmitting their instincts to the children they might 

 have begotten in their own tribe. This latter con- 

 sideration was to such an extent part of the reason 

 for this form of punishment that among certain 

 tribes (as those of Manyema) criminals were regularly 

 neutralised. Slaves who misconduct themselves are 

 often slain and eaten in cannibal tribes and most 

 tribes in Central Africa are anthropophagous. 



All this may seem cruel and barbarous, but it cannot 

 be denied that, once we are away from the civilised 

 centres in Central Africa, there are no beggars to be 

 found. Among the Bayaka, a person who asks for alms 

 becomes, ifso facto, the slave of the man to whom he 

 addresses his request. There is no such thing as real 

 poverty. Very few crimes are committed, for it 

 does not pay to play that game, and the native laws 

 are enforced without regard to the sentimental con- 

 siderations that weaken or nullify the influence of 

 our own. 



It is not in accord with my present desire to draw 

 any conclusions from what precedes ; the sole task 

 of the traveller consists in recording facts. None the 

 less, I may be permitted to express the fear that the 

 disadvantages and dangers of our civilisation as 

 applied to Africa will be only understood when it is 

 too late and when the natives will have become 

 civilised out of existence like the Tasmanians and 

 other unfortunate races, who had committed no 

 greater crime than having been the product of a line 

 of evolution wholly different from our own. The policy. 



