322 



NATURE 



\yufy 3, 1879 



be conceived that in wet seasons the oozing waters will 

 have some difficulty in making up their minds whether to 

 take their course to the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, or by 

 the Cubango south to the sands of the Kalahari Desert. 

 Major Pinto's real starting-point was Bih^, the eastern limit 

 of Portuguese West Africa. Going south and east by the 

 Kalahari Desert, through the Transvaal, he came upon 

 the scene of the Anglo-Zulu strife, and was safely carted 

 to Durban. He suffered the usual hardships of desertion 

 by followers, starvation, fighting hostile tribes, and narrow 

 escapes from cataracts. To the west of Bihd he disco- 

 vered the source of the Cubango, which, he states, loses 

 itself in the Kalahari Desert, after overflowing to form 

 Lakes Ngami and Macaricari, the latter of which is some- 

 times dried up. There is no connection, he says, between 

 the Cubango and Cuando, the latter, after receiving many 

 feeders, finding its way to the Zambesi, where, at its 

 mouth Livingstone gave it the name of Chobd. A good 

 deal of his information Pinto seems to have derived from 

 a map drawn by a Bihd native. The river Cuqueima, he 

 tells us, is an affluent of the Coanza, west of the Cubango. 

 At its source the Cuando is a little rill, but soon becomes 

 navigable, many of its tributaries being navigable also. 

 Going through Ungo-d-Ungo, between the Cuango and 

 Upper Zambesi, he found the ground all miry, an immense 

 marsh ; " water covered everything." From the Bihean's 

 map he found that the most southern source of the Lualaba 

 lies between those of the Liambai, or Zambesi, and 

 the Luengud, and in 12° S. Jat, "like those of the other 

 rivers of Africa." The Luengud, or Cafuque, the " Cafue " 

 of Livingstone, a tributary of the left bank of the Zambesi, 

 the Major states, has not a single cataract, and should 

 form the real key to Central Africa. The river that con- 

 nects Lakes Bangweolo and Moero, he states, is not the 

 Lualaba, but the Luapula ; did not Livingstone say so ? 

 Lualaba, Pinto says, is the name given to the west arm, 

 which extends to 12° south, and must be considered the 

 real source of the Congo, and not the Chambcze, which 

 enters the east end of Lake Bangweolo. On a recent 

 map of Africa, we find the Lualaba placed as described, 

 and as to which is the source of the Congo, it is a matter 

 of opinion as to what "source" means. 



The Zambesi seems to be more notorious for cataracts 

 than even the Lualaba — Congo ; Pinto and his men 

 descended thirty-seven ; he saw thirty in the space of an 

 hour and a half "that had never been mentioned by 

 any one." 



At the junction of the Cuando and Zambesi, Major 

 Pinto found an English naturalist from the Cape, Dr. 

 Bradshaw, "who was reduced to the greatest misery," 

 wandering about barefoot, and carrying in his hands a pair 

 of shoes, with only a tattered shirt and a pair of trousers on. 

 Dr. Bradshaw' s extreme misery he seems to have borne 

 with equanimity ; he gravely presented his carte-de- 

 visite, taken in London, to his Portuguese fellow-explorer. 

 He was shooting birds and collecting animals for " the 

 English museums." Near the same place a French 

 missionary family befriended the sorely beset traveller, 

 andhelped him out of his difficulties. At the beginning of 

 his journey, at Caconda, he met another naturalist, a 

 Portuguese, Anchietta, who has been twelve years in 

 Africa, and " has enriched one of the best African 

 museums in the world, that of the Lisbon Polytechnic 

 School, which is under the direction of Dr. Bocage." 

 Have the treasures of this African Museum ever been 

 described ? Anchietta was more fortunate than the 

 miserable English naturalist, who received the major in 

 his drawers. The Portuguese, on the contrary, received 

 his compatriot " in the woods, wearing a white necktie 

 and a dress coat, and offered us tea in cups of porcelain 

 of S6vres." Still Anchietta, with all his attention in the 

 wilds of Africa to the usages of ceremonious Europe, 

 seems to be a hard-working naturalist. 



The only other point in Major Pinto's lecture we need 



notice is his observation as to a race of white Africans, 

 which will recall to the reader what Stanley says about 

 the white inhabitants of the lofty mountain near the 

 Albert Nyanza. We shall let the Major tell what he 

 observed for himself : — ■ 



" I one day noticed that one of the carriers was a white 

 man. He belonged to a race entirely unknown up to the 

 present day. A great white people exists in South Africa. 

 Their name is Cassequer ; they are whiter than the Cau- 

 casians, and in place of hair have their heads covered 

 with small tufts of very short wool. Their cheek-bones 

 are prominent, their eyes like those of the Chinese. The 

 men are extremely robust. When they discharge an 

 arrow at an elephant the shaft is completely buried in the 

 animal's body. They live on roots and the chase, and it 

 is only when these supplies fail them that they hold any 

 relations with the neighbouring races, the Ambuelas, from 

 whom they obtain food in exchange for ivory. The Cas- 

 sequeres are an entirely nomadic race, and never sleep 

 two nights in the same encampment. They are the only 

 people in Africa that do not cook their food in pots. 

 They wander about, in groups of from four to six fami- 

 lies, over all the territory lying between the Cuchi and 

 the Cubango. It would seem that from a crossing of the 

 Cassequeres with the negroes of other races, sprang those 

 mulattoes of the South whom the English call bushmen. 

 The latter are, however, better off than the Cassequeres, 

 and use pots in cooking their food, while their dispositions 

 are good, though quite opposed to civilisation." 



We cannot doubt the accuracy of the Major's observa- 

 tions, though we should require to know more of the 

 curious people he speaks of before pronouncing on their 

 origin and affinities. 



Altogether it will be seen that Major Pinto, while hardly 

 having a claim to be ranked among "the foremost of ex- 

 plorers," has done a piece of good and useful work amid 

 a good many dangers, work creditable to himself and 

 his country, which, we trust, will be stimulated by his 

 example to do what she ought for the complete explora- 

 tion of that part of Africa which forms, so to speak, the 

 back garden of her West Coast colonies. 



THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF MAN'' 

 I. 



HUMAN anatomy, as ordinarily taught, has for its 

 end simply the knowledge of the structure of the 

 body of the man we have most to deal with in our prac- 

 tice, that is, the European man, in his usual average 

 development. No cognisance is taken of the deviations 

 from this ordinary but known type, except as individual 

 variations, which have their principal interest in any 

 interference they may cause with our diagnosis or treat- 

 ment of the diseases or injuries to which our frame is 

 liable. 



The comparative anatomy of man goes beyond this. 

 Instead of aiming at describing a general average man, 

 by overlooking, or purposely eliminating, all deviations 

 from the normal standard, it is specially occupied in 

 studying the differences between one man and another, 

 estimating and classifying these differences, and especially 

 discriminating between such differences as are only indi- 

 vidual variations (variations which, when extreme, are 

 relegated to the department of the teratologist) and those 

 that are inherited, and so become characters of distinct 

 groups and races of the human species. Physical 

 anthropology, moreover, extends its range beyond merely 

 comparing and registering these differences of structure. 

 It also occupies itself with endeavouring to trace their 

 cause, and the circumstances which may occasion their 

 modifications. It endeavours, also, to form a classifica- 

 tion of the different groups of mankind, and so to throw 



' Abstract of Prof. Flower's Hunterian Lectures, delivered at the Rojial 

 College of Surgecns, c.mmencing on Wednesday, March 5. 



