The Ethnology and Climatology of Central Africa. 203 
The average population of Central Africa may be estimated 
at about twenty to the square mile; and Mr Ravenstein 
estimates the total population of the whole continent at 127 
million, with a rate of increase of 10 per cent. per decade. 
Boehm and Wagner estimate the population at 205 million. 
Both these estimates, however, are mere guesses. 
The people of Northern Africa were probably in prehistoric 
times of the same ethnical stock as that of the peoples in- 
habiting Southern Europe. ‘The Arabs who are found in the 
deserts of the Soudan are probably all descendants from the 
proto-Semitic stock. For the rest, we have Negroes of various 
kinds, but all distinguished by projecting jaws, flat features, 
broad noses, woolly hair, shining skin and pouting lips, and 
it is probable that they are all of one origin. We have also 
in Africa the Bushman, Tikki-tikki and Akka dwarfs, who 
are probably the oldest primitive people in Africa; it is 
curious to notice that they live alongside of the gorillas; thus 
the two orders of primates approach nearest one another in 
this continent. 
There are various ways of classifying the ethnographic 
distribution of the African population. At present prob- 
ably the best way is to base the subdivision upon 
linguistic facts. There are, according to Cust, no less than 
438 languages and 153 dialects spoken in Africa. You will 
see on the map the relative positions occupied by people 
speaking cognate languages, and it is probably best to take 
Miiller’s classification of distinct ethnic groups as follows :— 
1. The Semitic family, along the north coast of Africa and 
in Abyssinia. 
2. The Hamitic family, who live mainly in the Sahara, 
Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and in the Galla and Somali 
districts. 
3. The Fulah and Nuba groups, who live in the western, 
central, and eastern Soudan. | 
4, The Negro groups, in the western and central Soudan, in 
Upper Guinea, and the Upper Nile region. 
5. The Bantu family, everywhere south of 4° N. lat., except 
in the Hottentot domain. 
6. The Hottentot group, in the extreme south-western 
