NATIVE RACES 5 



parts of the continent; and it is not a little remarkable that this division of 

 Africa into two great and distinct faunistic areas is very closely paralleled by the 

 distribution of the various types of the human race in that continent. 



Northern and part of East Africa is, for instance, populated by tribes, such 

 as the Berbers, the members of the Semitic group, as represented by Jews, Arabs, 

 and Abyssinians, and the various types of the Hamitic group, inclusive of the 

 Fellahin and Copts of Egypt, the Gallas of southern Abyssinia, the Somalis, the 

 Bisharin and Hadendoa Arabs of the eastern Sudan, and the Bahima of Uganda, all 

 of which are related to the Caucasian or white races of Europe and western Asia. 



On the other hand, the greater portion of what is conveniently termed 

 Ethiopian Africa, or that portion of the continent situated to the south of the 

 Sahara and Libyan Deserts, is the main home of the Negro stock, which constitutes 

 the lowest branch of the human race. The Negro, or Ethiopian, races, it may be 

 noted, are characterised by their dark, often nearly black, complexion and black 

 hair, typically of the kind called " frizzly " ; that is to say, a type in which each 

 hair is closely rolled upon itself, and has an elliptical or flattened section. The 

 beard is of scanty or moderate development, the skull is almost invariably of the 

 long type, the cheek-bones are small and moderately retreating, the nose is broad 

 and flat, with a low bridge, the eyes are prominent, the lips thick and everted, and 

 the teeth relatively large. African Negroes are divisible into two main sections — 

 the typical Negroes, who inhabit that portion of the continent north of a line 

 extending from the Rio del Rey to the Albert Nyanza, and thence with a southerly 

 trend to the coast, and the Bantu, as represented by Kafirs, to the southward of 

 the same. The members of the first group present great similarity of physical 

 type, and are chief!}- distinguished by language ; the converse being the case with 

 the Bantu. The pigmies of Central Africa, scientifically known as Negrillos, are 

 a dwarf race in which the hair is of the most frizzly type, and the complexion 

 lighter than that of most Negroes; but the projecting jaws, wide nose, and pro- 

 truding lips exhibit an ultra development of the Negro type, and thus show a 

 low grade of organisation. Except as regards bodily size, their only essential 

 difference from true Negroes is the tendency to a shortening and broadening of 

 the skull. The South African Bushmen, now almost exterminated as a pure type, 

 constitute a modification of the Negro stock in which the hair exhibits the extreme 

 development of the frizzly type. It is, for instance, shorter and more sparse than 

 in typical Negroes, and presents the appearance of growing in separate tufts 

 which coil up into balls, and is hence known as the " pepper-corn " type. The 

 beard is scanty, and little hair is developed on any part of the body except the 

 scalp ; while the skin is of a dirty yellow colour very like that of leather. 



