402 



SCIENTIFIC NEAVS. 



[April 27, I J 



of i^apersi, tlecture^, ttu 



ROYAL INSTITUTION. 

 The evening lecture on April 13th was given by Professor 

 Flower, C.B., F.R.S., on "The Pygmy Races of Men." 

 Various classical authors — Homer, Herodotus, Aristotle, 

 Ctesias, Pliny, and others — were cited to show the wide- 

 spread belief in the existence of races of human beings 

 of exceedingly diminutive stature, and to which the name 

 of Pygmy was given. Extension of knowledge of the 

 natural products of the earth and a more critical spirit 

 on the part of authors led to attempts to explain this 

 belief, and the discovery of races of monkeys, of the 

 doings of which more or less fabulous stories were often 

 reported by travellers, generally sufficed the com- 

 mentators and naturalists of the last century for this pur- 

 pose. Recently acquired information as to the actual con- 

 dition of the human population of the globe has, however, 

 led to a revision of the ideas upon the subject, and M. de 

 Quatrefages, the eminent professor of anthropology atParis, 

 hasespecially examined and collated with the greatest care 

 all the evidence bearing upon the question, and devoted 

 much ingenuity to prove that the two localities in which 

 the ancient authors appear to place their Pygmies — the 

 interior of Africa and the southernmost parts ot Asia — 

 and the characters they assign to them indicate an actual 

 knowledge of the existence of the two groups of small 

 people who still inhabit those regions, and whose history 

 formed the subject of the lecture. It is still, however, an 

 open question whether these old stories may not be 

 classed, with innumerable others, as the offspring of the 

 fertile invention of the human brain, the potency of which 

 as an origin of myths is sometimes too much underrated. 

 Taking leave, therefore, of the legendary stories, the 

 remainder of the lecture was devoted to an account of our 

 actual knowledge of the smallest races of men which exist, 

 or, as far as we know, ever have existed on earth, and 

 which, taking the word in its current though not its 

 literal sense, may be called Pygmies, or folks no bigger 

 than one's fist or fore-arm. The Andaman Islands in 

 the Indian Ocean are inhabited by a race of great interest 

 to the anthropologist. The earliest notices of these 

 islands are contained in the accounts of Arab voyages of 

 the ninth century, the ferocious hostility of the inhabi- 

 tants to all strangers and their reputed cannibalism being 

 described in glowing colours. It is to this character that 

 they owe their long isolation, although situated close to 

 the track of a great commercial navigation. In 1788 the 

 English Government of Bengal attempted to establish a 

 penal colony on the islands, but it was abandoned a few 

 years later, and the natives were left to themselves until 

 1857, when the project was revived with greater success 

 and a settlement formed, at which upwards of 12,000 

 convicts from the mainland of India are now maintained. 

 The natives at first were very shy, and it was some 

 years before amicable relations were established with 

 them; but now, owing to the judicious and considerate 

 treatment of successive English governors, they have laid 

 aside their former reserve, not to say hostility, and much 

 information has been collected, exhibiting their moral 

 character and social condition in a much more favour- 

 able light than the earlier accounts led us to believe. 

 They do not cultivate the ground or keep domestic 

 ■Hnimals, but they have a rude kind of hand-made pottery, 



and make vessels for holding water out of the hollow 

 stems of bamboos ; they also make excellent fishing nets 

 and baskets. They are perfect swimmers and divers 

 and expert at managing canoes. Their principal weapon 

 is the bow and arrow, but they also use spears, 

 harpoons, etc. They have no metals, and appear not to 

 know how to produce fire, though they always preserve 

 it carefully, as they rarely eat any food which is not 

 cooked. They live chiefly on wild pigs, birds, turtles, 

 fish, wild fruits, roots and seeds, larvae of insects, and 

 honey, and drink nothing but water. There is no trust- 

 worthy evidence that they are, or ever have been, 

 cannibals. The valuable information collected about 

 these people by Mr. E. H. Man refers, of course, to their 

 condition before their contact with European civili- 

 sation. Now all is changing, it may be feared not 

 for the better, and as a race they are fast disappear- 

 ing. One of the most distinctive physical features of the 

 Andamanese is their diminutive size. Accurate mea- 

 surements of a large number have been made, showing 

 that the average height of the men is 4 ft. 9 in.; that of 

 the women 4 ft. 6in. The colour of their skin is dark, 

 almost black, their hair is exceedingly closely curled or 

 " frizzly," and their heads are of the short, round type. 

 The great interest of the Andamanese natives is that they 

 are the only remaining pure specimens of a race of small 

 stature, dark colour, and frizzly hair which appear to 

 have been the earliest inhabitants of a large part of 

 Southern Asia, including India, Siam, Cochin China, 

 and all the islands of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago — a 

 race to which the name of Negrito has been given. 

 Traces of these people are still found at various spots 

 over this area, as in the Philippine Islands and the Malay 

 Peninsula, but always occupying the most mountainous 

 and inaccessible regions, and more or less persecuted by 

 the later comers, who have occupied the more fertile 

 portions of their land. In most cases their original 

 characters are changed or nearly lost by a mixture with 

 other races, but just enough remain to indicate their 

 former existence. Passing to the continent of Africa, 

 we find in the southernmost parts the well-known Bos- 

 jesmen, or bushmen, exhibiting a very peculiar modifi- 

 cation of the Negro type. Their average height is very 

 much the same as that of the Andamanese, and they 

 have the same very crisply curled, short, black hair, but in 

 many other respects they are widely different. Separated 

 from them, both geographically and in physical characters, 

 are a peculiar race of very little people called by Hamy 

 Negrillos, who are found living in scattered communities 

 among those of the ordinary full-sized Negroes nearly all 

 across the continent of Africa, within a few degrees of 

 either side of the Equator. Unless these were the real 

 Pygmies of the Greeks, our first knowledge of them is 

 due to Andrew Battell, in his interesting and apparently 

 truthful description of the Loango coast, written in the 

 end of the i6th century. His accounts were cor- 

 roborated by Du Chaillu, Stanley, and others. To this 

 group of people belong the Akkas, who live a short 

 distance to the west of Lake Albert Nyanza, discovered 

 by Schweinfurth in 1S70, and more recently investigated 

 by Emin Pasha, from whose letters some extracts were 

 read by the lecturer. These appeared to be really the 

 smallest race known, full-grown men and women being 

 often not more than 4 ft. high. Though so small in 

 stature, they are active and courageous, great hunters of 

 elephants, and use the bow and arrows with the same 

 dexterity as their cousins, the Negritos of Asia. It is 



