Feb. 19, 1885] 



NA TURE 



365 



central portion of the African continent, from the Atlantic 

 on the west to the Indian Ocean on the east, greatly 

 mixed all along their northern frontier with Hamitic and 

 Semitic Melanochroi, a mixture which, taking place in 

 various proportions and under varied conditions, has 

 given rise to many of the numerous races and tribes 

 inhabiting the Soudan. 



A branch of the African Negroes are the Bantu — distin- 

 guished chiefly, if not entirely, by the structure of their 

 language. Physically indistinguishable from the other 

 negroes where they come in contact in the Equatorial 

 regions of Africa, the Southern Bantu, or Kaffirs, as they 

 are generally called, show a marked modification of type, 

 being lighter in colour, having a larger cranial capacity, 

 less marked prognathism, and smaller teeth. Some of 

 these changes may possibly be due to crossing into the 

 next race. 



B. The Hottentots and Bushmen form a very distinct 

 modification of the Negro race. They formerly inhabited a 

 much larger district than at present ; but, encroached upon 

 by the Bantu from the north and the Dutch and English 

 from the south, they are now greatly diminished, and 

 indeed threatened with extinction. The Hottentots espe- 

 cially are mu'ii mixed with other races, and under the 

 influence of a civilisation which has done little to improve 

 their moral condition, they have lost most of their distinc- 

 tive peculiarities. When pure-bred they are of moderate 

 stature, have a yellowish-brown complexion, with very 

 frizzly hair, which, being less abundant than that of the 

 ordinary negro, has the appearance of growing in separate 

 tufts. The forehead and chin are narrow, and the cheek- 

 bones wide, giving a lozenge shape to the whole face. 

 The nose is very flat, and the lips prominent. In their 

 anatomical peculiarities, and almost everything except 

 size, the Bushmen agree with the Hottentots ; they have, 

 however, some special characters, for while they are the 

 most platyrhine of races, the prognathism so character- 

 istic of the negro type is nearly absent. This, however, 

 may be the retention of an infantile character so often 

 found in races of diminutive stature, as it is in all the 

 smaller species of a natural group of animals. The 

 cranium of a Bushman, taken altogether, is one of the 

 best marked of any race, and could not be mistaken for 

 that of any other. Their relation to the Hottentots, how- 

 ever, appears to be that of a stunted and outcast branch, 

 living the lives of the most degraded of savages among 

 the rocky caves and mountains of the land of which the 

 comparatively civilised and pastoral Hottentots inhabited 

 the plains. 



Perhaps the Negrillos of Hamy, certain diminutive 

 round-headed people of Central and Western Equatorial 

 Africa, may represent a distinct branch of the Negro race, 

 but their numbers are few, and they are very much mixed 

 with the true Negroes in the districts in which they are 

 found. They form the only exceptions to the general 

 dolichocephaly of the African branch of the Negro race. 



C. Oceanic Negroes or Melanesians. — These include 

 the Papuans of New Guinea and the majority of the 

 inhabitants of the islands of the Western Pacific, and form 

 also a substratum of the population, greatly mixed with 

 other races, of regions extending far beyond the present 

 centre of their area of distribution. 



They are represented, in what may be called a hyper- 

 typical form, by the extremely dolichocephalic Kai Colos, 

 or mountaineers of the interior of the Fiji Islands, although 

 the coast population of the same group have lost their 

 distinctive characters by crossing. In many parts of New 

 Guinea and the great chain of islands extending eastwards 

 and southwards ending with New Caledonia, they are 

 found in a more or less pure condition, especially in the 

 interior and more inaccessible portions of the islands, 

 almost each of which shows special modifications of the 

 type recognisable in details of structure. Taken altogether 

 their chief physical distinction from the African Negroes 



lies in the fact that the glabella and supra-orbital ridges are 

 generally well developed in the males, whereas in Africans 

 this region is usually smooth and flat. The nose, also, 

 especially in the northern part of their geographical range, 

 New Guinea, and the neighbouring islands, is narrower 

 (often mosorhine) and prominent. The cranium is gene- 

 rally higher and narrower. It is, however, possible to 

 find African and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential 

 characters. 



The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania are probably 

 pure, but aberrant, members of the Melanesian group, which 

 have undergone a modification from the original.type,notby 

 mixture with other races, but in consequence of long 

 isolation, during which special characters have gradually 

 developed. Lying completely out of the track of all 

 civilisation and commerce, even of the most primitive 

 kind, they were little liable to be subject to the influence 

 of any other race, and there is in fact nothing among their 

 characters which could be accounted for in this way, as 

 they are intensely, even exaggeratedly, Negroid in the form 

 of nose, projection of mouth, and size of teeth, typi- 

 cally so in character of hair, and aberrant chiefly in width 

 of skull in the parietal region. A cross with any of the 

 Polynesian or Malay races sufficiently strong to produce 

 this, would, in all probability, have also left some traces on 

 other parts of their organisation. 



On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian 

 region there are distinct evidences of large admixture 

 with Negrito, Malay, and Polynesian elements in varying 

 proportions, producing numerous physical modifications. 

 In many of the inhabitants of the great island of New 

 Guinea itself and of those lying around it this mixture can 

 be traced. In the people of Micronesia in the north, and 

 New Zealand in the south, though the Melanesian element 

 is present, it is completely overlaid by the Polynesian, but 

 there are probably few, if any, of the islands of the 

 Pacific in which it does not form some factor in the 

 composite character of the natives. 



The inhabitants of the continent of Australia have long 

 been a puzzle to ethnologists. Of Negroid complexion, 

 features, and skeletal characters, yet without the charac- 

 teristic frizzly hair, their position has been one of great 

 difficulty to determine. They have, in fact, been a stum- 

 bling-block in the way of every system proposed. The 

 solution, supported by many considerations too lengthy 

 to enter into here, appears to lie in the supposition that 

 they are not a distinct race at all, that is, not a homo- 

 geneous group formed by the gradual modification of one 

 of the primitive stocks, but rather a cross between two 

 already-formed branches of these stocks. According to 

 this view, Australia was originally peopled with frizzly- 

 haired Melanesians, such as those which still do, or did 

 till the recent European invasion, dwell in the smaller 

 islands which surround the north, east, and southern 

 portions of the continent, but that a strong infusion of 

 some other race, probably a low form of Caucasian 

 Melanochroi, such as that which still inhabits the interior of 

 the southern parts of India, has spread throughout the 

 land from the north-west, and produced a modification of 

 the physical characters, especially of the hair. This 

 influence did not extendacross Bass's Straits into Tasmania, 

 where, as just said, the Melanesian element remained in 

 its purity. It is more strongly marked in the northern 

 and central parts of Australia than on many portions of 

 the southern and western coasts, where the lowness of 

 type and more curly hair, sometimes closely approaching 

 to frizzly, show a stronger retention of the Melanesian 

 element. If the evidence should prove sufficiently strong 

 to establish this view of the origin of the Australian 

 natives, it will no longer be correct to speak of a primitive 

 Australian, or even Australoid, race or type, or look for 

 traces of the former existence of such a race anywhere 

 out of their own land. Proof of the origin of such a race 

 is, however, very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and 



