May 17, 1888] 



NA TURE 



69 



nost fashionable society, and finally settled down as members 

 ;>f the household of Count Miniscalchi Erizzo, at Verona, where 

 .hey received a European education, and performed the duties of 



l )a 2 es - 

 In reply to an inquiry addressed to my friend Dr. Giglioli, of 



Florence, I hear that Thibaut died of consumption on January 



28, 1883, being then about twenty-two years of age, and was 



juried in the cemetery at Verona. Unfortunately no scientific 



xamination of the body was allowed, but whether Chairallah 



till lives or not I have not been able to learn. As Giglioli has 



lot heard of his death, he presumes that he is still living in Count 



Vliniscalchi's palace. 



One other specimen of this race has been the subject of 



areful observation by European anthropologists — a girl named 



Saida, brought home by Romolo Gessi (Gordon's lieutenant), 



nd who is still, or was lately, living at Trieste as servant to 



VI. de Gessi. 



The various scattered observations hitherto made are ob- 



iously insufficient to deduce a mean height for the race, but 



he nearest estimate that Quatrefages could obtain is about 



feet 7 inches for the men, and 4 feet 3 inches for the 



vornen, decidedly inferior, therefore, to the Andamanese. With 



egard to their other characters, their hair is of the most frizzly 



ind, their complexion lighter than that of most Negroes, but 



he prognathism, width of nose, and eversion of lips characteristic 



f the Ethiopian branch of the human family are carried to an 



xtreme degree, especially if Schweinfurth's sketches can be 



rusted. The only essential point of difference from the ordinary 



Jegro, except the size, is the tendency to shortening and breadth 



f the skull, although it by no means assumes the "almost 



pherical " shape attributed to it by Schweinfurth. 



Some further information about the Akkas will be found in 



le work, just published, of the intrepid and accomplished 



•aveller in whose welfare we are now so much interested, Dr. 



Imin Pasha, Gordon's last surviving officer in the Soudan, 



'ho in the course of his explorations spent some little time lately 



\ the country of the Monbuttu. Here he not only met with 



ving Akkas, one of whom he apparently still retains as a 



omestic in his service, and of whose dimensions he has sent me 



most detailed account, but he also, by watching the spots where 



vo of them had been interred, succeeded in obtaining their 



celetons, which, with numerous other objects of great scientific 



iterest, safely arrived at the British Museum in September of 



1st year. I need hardly say that actual bones, clean, imperish- 



ble, easy to be measured and compared, not once only, but 



ny number of times, furnish the most acceptable evidence that 



inthropologist can possess of many of the most important 



ical characters of a race. There we have facts which can 



s be appealed to in support of statements and inferences 



on them. Height, proportions of limbs, form of head, 



ters of the face even, are all more rigorously determined 



bones than they can be on the living person. Therefore 



lue of these remains, imperfect as they unfortunately are, 



f course insufficient in number for the purpose of establishing 



characters, is very great indeed. 



I have entered fully into the question of their peculiarities 



here, I can only give now a few of the most important 



most generally to be understood results of their examination. 



he first point of interest is their size. The two skeletons are 



pth those of full-grown people, one a man, the other a woman. 



|here is no reason to suppose that they were specially selected 



exceptionally small ; they were clearly the only ones which 



nin had an opportunity of procuring ; yet they fully bear out, 



pre than bear out, all that has been said of the diminutive 



re of the rac. Comparing the dimensions of the bones, one 



rone, with those of the numerous Andamanese that have passed 



gh my hands, I find both of these Akkas smaller, not than 



veiage, but smaller than the smallest ; smaller also than 



ushman whose skeleton I am acquainted with, or whose 



isions have been published with scientific accuracy. In 



:hey are both, for they are nearly of a size, the smallest 



al human skeletons which I have seen, or of which I can 



any record. I say normal, because they are thoroughly 



rown and proportioned, without a trace of the deformity 



t always associated with individual dwarfishness in a taller 



One only, that of the female, is sufficiently perfect for 



ation. After due allowance for some missing vertebra 1 , and 



e intervertebral spaces, the skeleton measures from the 



n of the head to the ground exactly 4 feet, or I'2i8 metre. 



ut half an inch more for the thickness of the skin of the 



head and soles of the feet would complete the height when 

 alive. The other (male) skeleton was (judging by the length 

 of the femur) about a quarter of an inch shorter. 



The full-grown woman of whom Emin gives detailed 

 dimensions is stated to be only 1-164 metre, or barely 3 feet 10 

 inches. 1 These heights are all unquestionably less than any- 

 thing that has been yet obtained based upon such indisputable 

 data. One very interesting and almost unexpected result of a 

 careful examination of these skeletons is that they conform in 

 the relative proportions of the head, trunk, and limbs, not to 

 dwarfs, but to full-sized people of other races, and they are 

 therefore strikingly unlike the stumpy, long-bodied, short- 

 limbed, large-headed pygmies so graphically represented fighting 

 with their lances against the cranes on ancient Greek vases. 



The other characters of these skeletons are Negroid to an 

 intense degree, and quite accord with what has been stated of 

 their external appearance. The form of the skull, too, has that 

 sub-brachycephaly which has been shown by Hamy to charac- 

 terize. all the small Negro populations of Central Africa. It is 

 quite unlike that of the Andamanese, quite unlike that of the 

 Bushmen. They are obviously Negroes of a special type, to which 

 Hamy has given the appropriate term of Negrillo. They seem 

 to have much the same relation to the larger longer-headed 

 African Negroes that the small round-headed Negritos of the 

 Indian Ocean have to their larger longer-headed Melanesian 

 neighbours. 



At all events, the fact now seems clearly demonstrated that at 

 various spots across the great African continent, within a few 

 degrees'north and south of the equator, extendingfrom the Atlantic 

 coast to near the shores of the Albert Nyanza (30 E. long.), 

 and perhaps, if some indications which time will not allow me to 

 enter into now (but which will be found in the writings of Hamy 

 and Quatrefages), even further to the east, south of the Galla 

 land, are still surviving, in scattered districts, communities of these 

 small Negroes, all much resembling each other in size, appearance, 

 and habits, and dwelling mostly apart from their larger neigh- 

 bours, by whom they are everywhere surrounded. Our informa- 

 tion about them is still very scanty, and to obtain more would be 

 a worthy object of ambition for the anthropological traveller. In 

 many parts, especially at the west, they are obviously holding 

 their own with difficulty, if not actually disappearing, and there 

 is much about their condition of civilization, and the situations in 

 which they are found, to induce us to look upon them, as in the 

 case of the Bushmen in the south and the Negritos in the east, as 

 remains of a population which occupied the land before the in- 

 coming of the present dominant races. If the account of the 

 Nasamonians related by Herodotus is accepted as historical, the 

 river they came to, " flowing from west to east," must have been 

 the Niger, and the northward range of the dwarfish people far 

 more extensive twenty- three centuries ago than it is at the 

 present time. 



This view opens a still larger question, and takes us back to 

 the neighbourhood of the south of India as the centre from which 

 the whole of the great Negro race spread, east over the African 

 continent, and west over the islands of the Pacific, and to our 

 little Andamanese fellow subjects as probably the least modified 

 descendants of the primitive members of the great branch of the 

 human species characterized by their black skins and frizzly hair. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCA TIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — In a recent discussion on the proposed appro- 

 priation of the whole of the Botanic Gardens site for Natural 

 Science Departments, it seemed to be generally agreed that the 

 Mechanical Department ought to be removed from a locality 

 where it must cause vibrations injurious to microscopical or 

 physical research. The suggested removal of the Herbarium 

 to the Botanic Gardens was disapproved of by the Professor and 

 his Assistant-Curator. The proposed appropriation of the 

 present Chemical Rooms for Pathology was generally approved. 

 Mr. J. W. Clark emphatically condemned the present Museum 

 of Human Anatomy and Surgery as a discredit to the Univer- 

 sity. Prof. Hughes further put in a claim that the Geological 

 Museum should extend to the extreme east of the site, and that 

 the erection of the buildings should be begun at once. 



' In his letters Emin speaks of an Akkrtmanas"3 feet 6 inches" high, though 

 this does not profess to be a scientifically accurate observation, as does the 

 above. He says of this man that his whole body was covered by thick, stiff 

 hair, almost like felt, as was the case with all the Akkas he had yet examined. 



