260 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[November 1, 1900. 



a victim to the climate and the hardships of travel, was 

 tlic means of procuring two Akkas, who arrived safely, 

 first at Cairo, and subsequently in Italy ; one of them 

 dying at Verona in the winter of 1883. An Akka 

 girl was also brought by another Italian traveller to 

 Trieste. Later Emin Pasha transmitted to the Natural 

 History Branch of the British Museum the skeletons 

 of a male and female Akka; the latter, which Major 

 Casati says was obtained by himself and presented to 

 Emin, being nearly complete, and now mounted in the 

 exhibition series. Making due allowance for a few 

 missing vertebrse, and likewi.^e for the soft tissues, this 



An Akka Woiii;iii. (Fivmi Mlijoi- Casati's ''Tfii Yrars in Eqnatoria." 

 W'anu' & Co.) 



skeleton, in the opinion of the late Sir W. H. Flower, 

 indicates a woman of exactly four feet in height, who 

 was evidently fully adult. Emiu states, however, that a 

 living woman whom he measured barely reached 3 feet 

 10 inches; being therefore greatly inferior in point of 

 size both to the Pygmies of Asia and also to the Bush- 

 men of South Africa. Nevertheless, as may be seen 

 in the aforesaid skeleton, and also in the numerous 

 portraits of these little people which have been pub- 

 lished of late years, the Negrillos (as the African Pyg- 

 mies are technically called) are in all respects well 

 formed and well proportioned. 



Descriptions of the Akkas and other tribes of Pygmies 

 have also been published by Major Casati, as well as by 



several other later African travellers ; and we now 

 possess a very large amount of information not only with 

 regard to their physical characteristics and their mode 

 of life, but also in respect to their geographical distri- 

 bution. It is now ascertained, for instance, that the 

 range of these dwarfs originally extended from' near the 

 Atlantic sea-board in the Gabun district as far easf> 

 wards as the confines of Lake Tangai:yika; and from 

 N. latitude 3° on the Aruwimi river to about latitude 

 7° in the neighbourhood of Lakes Stephanie and 

 Rudolf, where they were recently encountered by the 

 American traveller Dr. Donaldson Smith. In the Lake 

 Rudolf district, where they are known by the name of 

 Dume, these people depart, however, so widely from 

 the diminutive stature of the Akkas of the Aruwimi 

 that they can scarcely be called Pygmies at all in the 

 literal sense of that term; Dr. Donaldson Smith giving 

 their average height as about 4 feet 11 inches. Never- 

 theless, as this tribe seems to agree with the more 

 tvpical Pygmies in general physical character, its mem- 

 bers must be included among the Negrillos. Not 

 improbably their superior statui-e may be attributed 

 to climatic influences, and perhaps also in some degree 

 to crossing with the Negro tribes among whom thcv 

 dwell. That such crossings do take place seems to be 

 evidenced by certain tribes living on the upper Ituri, 

 who are believed to trace their oi-igin to inter-breeding 

 between pure-blooded Negrillos on the one hand and 

 Bantu or other negroes on the other. 



Exclusive of these aben-ant frontier tribes, Sir William 

 Flower estimated the average height of the African 

 Pygmies at about 4 feet 7 inches for the men, and 

 4 feet 3 inches for the women ; this estimate according 

 fairly well with that of Major Casati, who says that most 

 Akkas do not exceed 4^ feet. As has been already 

 stated, in the rounded and broad form of their heads, 

 these people differ markedly from the long-headed 

 Negroes among whom they dwell ; although this 

 character is not so pi-onounced as was at first considered 

 to be the case by some obsei-vers. Chocolate-brown 

 has been mentioned above as the colour- of the skin of 

 the Pygmies, and it has been compared to ordinary 

 tablet chocolate or to slightly roasted coffee-berries. 

 In this respect, therefore, these people differ markedly 

 from their southern cousins the Bushmen, in which it 

 is leather-yellow. Moreover these people lack the 

 prominent cheek-bones and lozenge-shaped face of the 

 last^mentioned race ; while the women seldom exhibit 

 in any marked degree a peculiarity of figure character- 

 istic of the " Hottentot Venus " and other Bushmen 

 females. Then, again, although the scalp-hair in all 

 these African races is of the frizzly, or mis-called woolly, 

 type, that of a Pj'gmy does not grew in tufts like the 

 black locks of a Bushman, but is described as being of a 

 more fleece-like chai'acter, and is frequently of a more 

 or less light shade of brown. But the most remai-kable 

 capillarv peculiainty of the Akkas is the presence of 

 a fine down over the whole skin ; Emin Pasha stating 

 that in the individuals examined by him this took the 

 form of thick, stiff hair, almost like felt ; this hair, accord- 

 ing to the observations of Major Casati already referred 

 to, being more developed in the typical Akkas than in 

 the TLki-tiki. Adult men have a certain amount of hair 

 on the cheeks and chin. In connection with the down 

 on the bodv, it may be mentioned that a very similar 

 hairy covering is found on the children of the higher 

 races of mankind some time previous to birth. As 

 regards their general cast of features, Akkas display 

 a somewhat ultra development of the ordinary Negro 



