February 23, 191 1] 



NATURE 



543 



tions of the degree of physical beauty to which the 

 negro can attain : yet even amongst these tribes and 

 peoples there are Forest negro tj'pes of simian ugli- 

 ness. 



Mr. Theal is conscious himself of the extraordinarj' 

 mixture of racial types amongst the Bantu, and gives 

 us a vivid picture of their inextricable maze of wander- 

 ings in past times. But, of course, all the races of 

 South Africa descended from the north at one time 

 or another. Whether the first arrival of the Bantu- 

 speaking negroes south of the Zambezi was as late 

 in the world's histor\' as Mr. Theal surmises, is a 

 question as to which we cannot arrive at a very pre- 



FiG. 2. — Portrait of Hcrero Men. From " The Yellow and Dark-skinned People of Africa, 

 Sooth of the Zambezi." 



cise decision, though he is more likely to be right 

 in his approximate dates than some of his earlier 

 critics. But, of course, it is inconceivable that the 

 Bantu invaders, if they came so late in histor}', found 

 that the southern third of Africa was merely sparsely 

 populated with Bushmen and a few Hottentot hybrids, 

 or the lingering Strandloopers (who may have been 

 more of the forest negro t>pe and are alleged to have 

 preceded the Bushmen). There must have been a 

 fairly abundant negro population in the fertile regions 

 of South-East Africa, To what group or groups did 

 this belong? What language families did they re- 



NO. 2156, VOL. 85] 



present? With this again is mixed up the mystery of 

 Zinibabwe. Prof. Randall Mclver's researches and 

 criticisms have badly damaged the theory which 

 seemed at one time such a convenient one to explain 

 Zimbabwe and similar ruins: that South-East Africa 

 was colonised perhaps two thousand years ago or 

 earlier, by a fweign, Semitic people — possibly the 

 Arabs of southern Arabia. Prof, von Luschan, of 

 Berlin, has gone into this subject more recently than 

 Prof. Mclver, and feels bound to endorse his objec- 

 tions to the art and architecture of Zimbabwe being 

 of extra-African origin. Yet the art and architecture 

 are profoundly unlike anything which has hitherto been 

 developed by the topical Bantu peoples 

 of East or South Africa; and the 

 Makaranga peoples, who are still the 

 principal indigenes of all this region of 

 ruins between the Limpopo and the 

 Zambezi, contain, as Mr. Theal points 

 out quite truly, so many individuals of 

 semi-Caucasian lineaments. 



Of late, one or two German ethnolo- 

 gists have pointed out the remarkable 

 resemblance between the soapstone 

 birds, and some other emblems of Zim- 

 babwe, and the art of north-western 

 Kamerun, the interior of the Cross 

 River district (see for further light on 

 this the remarkable paper on the Ekoi 

 by Mr. P. A. Talbot in the December 

 . number of the Geographical Maga- 

 zine), and even of Benin and Yoruba. 

 The influence of this particular West 

 Africa culture certainly penetrated, 

 athwart all Bantu linguistic influence, 

 down the Congo coast to the mouth of 

 the Congo and to the western parts of 

 the Congo Basin. Can it possiblj have 

 traversed Central Africa to reach a 

 great isolated development in the region 

 between the Zaml)ezi and the Trans- 

 vaal ? The physical t)"pe of the negroes 

 associated with this Voruba-Kamerun 

 art is tj'pically negro, but would not 

 differ very markedly in skull formation 

 from that of the average Bantu negro. 

 So far, no skull remains dug up in or 

 near any of these "Zimbabwe" ruins 

 are other than negro of the Bantu tjpe. 

 Mr. Theal is not able in this book 

 to throw any fresh light on another 

 South African mystery : the place of 

 origin of the Zulus, that is to say, of 

 the dominating tribes or castes in 

 southernmost Africa, which created the 

 present Kafir-Zulu language or group 

 of dialects. Far from this Zulu-Kafir 

 language being what in eariier days 

 was styled by various writers the Sans- 

 krit of the Bantu (that is to say, the 

 Bantu language most nearh- represent- 

 ing the original mother tongne, and 

 the most archaic in its features), the 

 the case. Zulu-Kafir is in some 

 widely aberrant member of the Bantu 

 most aberrant, if one exclude from 

 purview certain worn-down forms of speech in the 

 heart of the Congo Basin or the Kamerun. It 

 has probably adopted its three clicks from the 

 Bushmen, but the clicks matter little in compari- 

 son with the large proportion of the word-roots which 

 have been — one might think — specially invented 

 and are without any known relationships in 

 other Bantu tongues. The culture of the Zulu recalls 

 strikingly that of the Masai, the most southern in its 



contrary is 

 respects a 

 familv : the 



