a 
; March 1, 1883 | 
NATURE 
409. 
in that region have already appeared at various times in 
the memoirs of the Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde and of 
other learned societies. But the issue of the monumental 
work embodying all the details in a permanent form is 
proceeding at a very slow rate. The first part, covering 
the years 1869-70, did not appear till 1879, and an interval 
of two years elapsed before the publication of this second 
instalment, which, although forming a bulky volume of 
790 pages, gets no further than the first days of September, 
1872. In the preface the delay is attributed mainly to the 
time occupied in the tedious process of sifting the ethno- 
logical and especially the linguistic materials brought 
home by the traveller. The help afforded by Rudolf 
Prietze in arranging these materials is handsomely ac- 
knowledged in the preface, where occasion is also taken 
to express regret for omitting to give the source of the 
familiar mailclad, mounted Bornu warrior borrowed in 
Part I. from Denham and Clapperton’s work, attention to 
which oversight had been called in our review of that 
volume (see NATURE, vol. xxi. p. 198). 
The three books forming the present volume embrace 
the trips made to Kanem and Borku north of, to 
Baghirmi south of, Lake Chad, and to the islands in the 
lake itself. Separate chapters of great permanent value 
are devoted to the main geographical features of these 
regions, and to the history and complex ethnical relations 
of their inhabitants. Here special attention is naturally 
claimed by the mysterious Tubu people of the East 
Sahara, and a serious attempt is made to explain their 
relations on the one hand to the Hamitic Tuariks 
(Berbers) of the West Sahara, on the other to the Negro 
races of Sudan. 
The Tubu, that is, “‘ people of Tu” or Tibesti,! are by 
Lepsius ? with great probability identified with the Gara- 
mantes of Herodotus (iv. 183), whose capital was Garama 
(Edrisi’s Germa) in Phazania (Fezzan). 
places the Garamantes in the same region, that is, in the 
Libyan Desert (Sahara) south of the Syrtis Major (Gulf 
of Sidra), already speaks doubtfully of their ethnical 
affinities, and seems disposed to affiliate them rather to 
the Ethiopian (Negro) stock.? Later on this position is 
_disturted by Leo Africanus, whose fifth great division of 
the Berbers are the Gumeri (Garamantes?), whom he 
elsewhere calls Bardei (Bardoa). These Bardzi, whose 
name appears to survive in the Bardaz oasis of Tibesti, 
are accordingly identified by Vater with the Tubu, and 
by him grouped with the Berbers.* Now comes Lepsius, 
who again removes the Tubu from the Libyan (Berber) 
connection, and with Ptolemy transfers them to the 
Negro group. He admits a strong modification of the 
original dark, and a corresponding assimilation to the 
Libyan, type. But this is attributed to their position 
along the great historical trade route across the Sahara 
between North Africa and the Chad basin, wh le their 
language is regarded as decisive proof of their Negro 
relationship.° 
And thus this interesting, if somewhat troublesome, 
nomad race has continued throughout the historic period 
* Cf. Kanent-bu =people of Kanem, where dz is the pl. of the personal 
postfix #ra, answering to the personal prefix m, pl. da, wa, cf the Bantu 
races, as in M’Ganda, Waganda; and to the de of Fud-be =‘‘ Pul people.”’ 
2 Nubische Grammatik, Einleitung. 
°“Ovraw S¢ cal airay bn uadrAov alédrwy, i, 8. 
ass Mithridates II.,”" p. 45 of Berlin ed. 1812 
5 “ Urspriinglich ein Negervolk,”’ of. cit., Einleitung, xlviii. 
Ptolemy, who_ 
to occupy a dubious ethnological position between the 
surrounding Hamitic and Negro peoples. That Dr. 
Nachtigal should attempt to grapple with the problem was 
inevitable, and although his own inferences are vague 
and hesitating, he at all events supplies ample material 
for a satisfactory solution. As in so many other anthro- 
pological fields, the difficulty turns, so to say, mainly on. 
the collision between ethnical and philological interests 
The present physical resemblance of the Tubu to their 
western neighbours, the Berber Tuariks, admits of no 
doubt, and this resemblance increases as we proceed from 
the Dasa, or southern, to the Teda,' or northern, division 
of the race. In fact there is here the same gradual 
transition between the Hamites of the Sahara and the 
Negroes of Sudan, which is found further west all 
along the borderlands from Bornu to the Atlantic, and 
which is conspicuous especially in the more or less 
mixed Sonrhay, Pul, Hausa, and Toucouleur nations of 
the Chad, Niger, and Senegal basins. To these corre- 
spond in Central Sudan the Negroid Kanuri, Kanembu, 
Baele, and Zoghawa peoples,’ while the same com- 
plexity is presented in the Nilotic regions, where the 
Nuba family merges imperceptibly north and south in 
the Egyptians and Negroes of the White Nile. 
But Lepsius (of. cé¢.) now holds that the two elements 
have become interpenetrated throughout the whole of the- 
Sudan, which he consequently regards as an interme- 
diate zone of transition between the intruding Hamites 
from Asia and the autochthonous Negroes, whose original 
domain is relegated to the southern half of the conti- 
nent. In this scheme, which thus recognises in Africa 
only two fundamental racial and linguistic types, what 
place can be assigned to the Tubu? We have seen 
that Lepsius himself disposes of the question by re- 
garding them as originally Negroes assimilated physi- 
cally to the Berbers, while retaining their primitive Negro 
speech. If this view could be accepted, we should have 
an instance of the linguistic surviving the ethnical type, 
a theory in which anthropologists would in any case be 
slow to acquiesce. But Dr. Nachtigal’s researches, while 
confirming Barth and Koelle’s conclusions regarding the 
intimate relation of Tubu to Kanem and Kanuri, also 
show that this group is fundamentally distinct from the 
Bantu, that is, from the typical Negro linguistic stock of 
Lepsius. If it could be affiliated to the Hamitic family,. 
there would be no further difficulty as to the ethnical 
position of Tubu. But Nachtigal also shows that it 
differs quite as radically from Hamitic as it does from 
Bantu. His inquiries have in fact resulted in the dis- 
covery of an independent and widespread linguistic 
family corresponding in the East Sahara and Central 
Sudan to the northern Hamitic and southern Bantu 
groups. The source, or at least the most archaic known 
form, of this family is the Teda, or northern Tubu, whose 
direct offshoots are the more highly developed Dasa, or 
southern Tubu, the Kanem north of Lake Chad, the 
Kanuri of Bornu, the Baele of Ennedi and Wanyanga, 
and the Zoghawa of North Dar-Fur. More distant 
members appear to be the Hausa, Fulu, and Sonrhay of 
x Inthis word Teda we have apparently the root of the Tedamensiz, a 
branch of the Garamantes placed by Ptolemy south of the Samamyeii in 
Tripolitana. If my identification is correct, it gives us a fresh proof of the 
identity of the Garamantes with the Tubu 
2 See my paper ‘‘ Onthe Races and Tnbes 
vol xv p. 550. 
of the Chad Basin,” NaturE, 
