494 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 587. 



built by, or under the direction of, a Semitic 

 people, the favorite idea being that these 

 forts protected the old mines from which 

 King Solomon obtained his gold. Mr. Mac- 

 Iver was bold enough to express the opin- 

 ion that there is no evidence that strangers 

 erected or directed the erection of these 

 buildings; indeed, he believed they were 

 entirely of native origin and were, as a mat- 

 ter of fact, more or less specialized chiefs' 

 kraals. Further he stated that no proof 

 has been produced that any of the ruins are 

 more than a few hundred years old and he 

 frankly speaks of them as medieval. This 

 problem has thus entered upon a new phase, 

 and we may expect a lively discussion in 

 consequence. 



Although, taking them as a whole, the 

 papers read before Section H were well up 

 to the average merit, or indeed above it, of 

 papers presented to this section at previous 

 meetings of the British Association, the 

 value to the anthropological members of the 

 South African meeting was immeasurably 

 greater than has hitherto been the case, for 

 it has been one long demonstration in the 

 field of the social life of various races of 

 mankind and of their relations with each 

 other. 



"We came into contact with a large num- 

 ber of government officials of every rank in 

 the several colonies, as well as with mission- 

 aries and others, and from them we were 

 able to obtain a considerable amount of 

 definite information concerning natives and 

 the way in which they are governed. At 

 first it is somewhat bewildering to note the 

 different ideals concerning the native ques- 

 tion and methods of treatment of the na- 

 tives by the governments of the different 

 colonies and protectorates. These are set 

 forth at length, and with many contradic- 

 tory conclusions by individual witnesses in 

 the four volumes, 'Minutes of Evidence,' 

 of the South African Native Affairs Com- 

 mission, 1903-5. The 'Report' itself sums 



up a good deal of the evidence and gives 

 the conclusions to which the commissioners 

 have arrived, and it will not fail to prove 

 of interest to sociologists in the United 

 States who are concerned with somewhat 

 analogous problems. We had no time to 

 enter fully into the native problems of the 

 several colonies, but we learned sufficient to 

 enable us to approach these problems with 

 more appreciation of local conditions than 

 was previously possible, and we are less 

 likely in the future to settle the problems to 

 our own satisfaction in an off-hand manner 

 or in a purely academic spirit. One can 

 not help feeling that it would be worth 

 while for a deputation of representatives 

 of various colonies of South Africa to visit 

 the United States of America with a view 

 to seeing what has been done, wisely or 

 unwisely, in the past with regard to the 

 negro problem, and to note the trend of 

 public opinion; since the experience of 

 the United States may prove immediately 

 beneficial to South Africa in some respects 

 and also save future trouble. 



The native question in South Africa 

 presents many aspects. In Cape Colony 

 there is a large population of half-castes 

 which is practically absent elsewhere. In 

 all the colonies the natives are numerous 

 and very prolific. Some tribes are still 

 under the old tribal system, but in other 

 communities this has been destroyed. A 

 few natives live in towns, many in loca- 

 tions near towns, where they are massed for 

 labor pui-poses in a somewhat similar man- 

 ner to the compounds in the mining centers, 

 with the exception that in the latter, wives 

 and families are absent. In the native 

 reservations the natives are allowed great 

 freedom and they live their lives in the 

 old manner so far as the altered conditions 

 of the dominance of the white man, the 

 diminished authority of the chiefs and the 

 destruction of their cattle by rinderpest 

 and red- water fever permit; some of these 



