136 



ORDER BIMANA— GENUS HOMO. 



lias been latterly confined to a race of Negroes, occupying the country to 

 the south-east of Africa, called Caffraria, which extends from the Cape of 

 Good Hope to Monoinotapa. 



The races inhabiting this extensive district differ alike from the Ethio- 

 pians, the Hottentots, and the Aramean races, which adjoin them. The 

 skull of the CafFre exhibits an elevated arch, like that of the European -, 

 the nose, far from being flattened, approaches to the aquiline form. He 

 has the thick lips of the Ethiopian, and the high cheek-bones of the 

 Hottentot ; his curly hair is less woolly than that of the Negro, and his 

 beard stronger than that of the Hottentot. In general he is tall and 

 well-made ; with the skin not quite so black as in the Negro, and is 

 usually in the habit of painting his face and entire body with a red ochre. 

 The height of the females contrasts forcibly with that of the males, for 

 scarcely do they attain the stature of a European female, though in other 

 respects they are equally well-formed. The limbs of a well-made Caft're 

 present that rounded and graceful contour which we admire in the an- 

 tique statues of the Pelasgian races ; his countenance is mild and lively. 

 The Caff're girls are highly esteemed for their beauty, and form an import- 

 ant branch of a disgraceful export trade. The clothes of the Caffres are 

 made of skins, and their ornaments consist of ivory or copper rings, which 

 they carr}' on the left arm or in the ears. Cattle form their principal 

 wealth, although the cultivation of the soil, performed exclusively by the 

 females, yields no inconsiderable portion of their sustenance.' 



All the Caffres are very warlike and active, fond of long journeys, 

 either to visit their friends, or merely from the restless desire of change. 



The Betjounnas have already exhibited some rude approaches towards 

 civilization. Their countenances are intelligent ; their memory reten- 

 tive ; and they exhibit no small degree of inquisitiveness during their in- 

 tercourse with strangers. Theii priests, the chief of whom is second 

 only to tlie king, preside over certain religious ceremonies, such as the 

 circumcisicn of the male infants, the consecration of cattle, and predic- 

 tions of the future. They are unacquainted with the art of writing; their 

 arithmetic is confined to addition ; they count on their fingers, and have 

 no signs of a decimal notation. The form of their houses distinguishes 

 them most advantageously from the other nations of Southern Africa, 

 and some considerable towns are occasionally to be found, with a popu- 

 lation of several thousands. 



The Koussas have a decided attachment for a pastoral life ; yet they 

 do not hesitate to take up arms in defence of their country, and have 

 successfully resisted the attacks of Europeans. The Maroutzas and Ma- 

 kinis manufacture the dresses, ornaments, arms, and domestic implements 

 of the other tribes. Hence the Caflfre races would appear to have ad- 

 vanced further in civilization than any of the Ethiopian races, though 

 none of them have yielded their faith to the exertions of the Christian 

 missionaries. Some Caffre families have emigrated to the southern ex- 

 tremity of the Island of Madagascar. 



The language of the Caffres is sonorous, rich in vowels and aspirations, 

 with very few of those harsh guttural sounds which render the Hotten- 

 tot dialect so disagreeable to foreigners. 



C. HOMO CAPENSIS.— HOTTENTOTS & BUSHMEN. 

 Si/ii. Hottentot. — Less. Mam. 27. 



H. HoTTENTOTUs. — Bory, Ess. Zool. II. 1 1.3. 

 AusTrto-AFBicAiNE. — Desmoul. Tab. 

 Icon. Blumenb. Dec. Cran. V. t. 55. (Skull of a Bushman Hottentot.) 



GeofF. et F. Cuv.^ Hist. Mam. (Femme Boschesmanne) ; and Pcron, 

 Voy. pi. 57. 



The Hottentots of Southern Africa present the widest divergence in 

 their physical traits, as well as in their anatomical characters, from the 

 White races of Europe ; and in many respects assume the characteristics 

 of the Orangs, and larger Apes. As we find in the Genus Macacus, the 

 bones of the nose are united, according to Lichtenstein, into a single 

 scaly lamina, flattened, and much broader than in any other human skull. 

 The olecranon cavity of the humerus is also pierced with a hole ; and 

 the front teeth with their alveolae are oblique. 



The complexion of the Hottentot is more or less brown or yellowish- 

 brown, but never black. His head is small, the cheek-bones very pro- 

 minent, the eyes sunk, and the sclerotica pure white ; the face, veiy 

 broad above, ends in a point, the nose is flat, the lips thick, and the teeth 

 very white. He is well made and tall, with small hands and feet in pro- 

 portion to the rest of his body. The hair is black, curly, or woolly; but 

 in many tribes, instead of covering the surface of the scalp, it is collected 



into small tufts, at certain distances from each other, resembling the pen- 

 cils of a stiff shoe-brush, only curled and twisted into hard and round 

 lumps. When allowed to grow it forms small tassels like the frini'e of a 

 curtain. The Hottentot is almost destitute of beard, his ears are directed 

 backwards, and the concha is so small that no part of that organ is visible 

 in front. The form of the foot is very different from that of an Ethio- 

 pian or CafFre, and the impression of a Hottentot foot on the sand in 

 consequence is readily recognised. 



The Boschismans. or Bushmen, called Saabs by some of the native 

 tribes, seem to have been separated from the proper Hottentots at a very 

 remote era. These races having been hunted hke wild beasts by the 

 colonists, and driven to the deserts, exist only by hunting or plunder. 

 They live in caverns, and clothe themselves with the skins of animals 

 killed in the chase, while their industry is confined to the fabrication of 

 poisoned arrows and fishing-nets. They exist in the extreme of wretch- 

 edness ; their meagre limbs and famished appearances betray the privations 

 to which they are reduced. They remain without leaders, without pro- 

 perty, or even a social tie, excepting the transient passion of the moment.' 

 We must here notice the existence of two singular anomalies in the 

 organization of tlie female Boschismans ; these are tise extraordinary size of 

 their haunches, and that remarkable prolongation of the sexual organ, 

 vulgarly called the apron. 



In respect to the first of these peculiarities, Le Vaillant assures us that 

 he saw it in a girl of three years old.* The large projection of her 

 haunches consisted in a fleshy and adipose tissue, oscillating at every 

 movement of the body like a tremulous jelly. The mother while walk- 

 ing occasionally places her infant upon this protuberance, and Le Vaillant 

 observed one female running while her child stood upon the haunch, like 

 the groom behind a cabriolet. 



The female Boschisman, exhibited in Paris during the year 1815, mea- 

 sured about nineteen inches across the haunches, while the hips pro- 

 jected full seven inches, a pecuharity which was afterwards found to 

 proceed from a large mass of fat placed immediately under the skin.* 



According to Peron, the apron of the Boschisman female has nothing 

 in common with the ordinary sexual organs as observed in the females of 

 other nations ; while, according to the Parisian anatoiiaists, the peculiarity 

 of the female already alluded to consisted merely in an unusual develop- 

 ment of the nymphae. The labia were slightly pronounced, and inter- 

 cepted an oval of 4.26 inches in length. From the upper angle there 

 descended between them a half-cylindrical eminence about L6 inches in 

 length, and .53 in thickness, the lower extremity of which enlarging be- 

 came forked, and was prolonged into two fleshy petals, about 2.66 inches 

 in length, and 1.06 inches in breadth; each of them rounded on the 

 summit ; their bases enlarging and descending along the internal margin 

 of the great labium, on its side, and changing into a fleshy crest which 

 terminated at the lower angle of the labium. On raising these two ap- 

 pendages, they formed together the figure of a heart, with long and nar- 

 row lobes, the centre of which was occupied by the vulva. It may be 

 readily seen on comparing this description with the analogous parts in the 

 European female, that the two fleshy lobes which form the apron are 

 formed at the upper part by the clitoris and the summits of the nympliEe, 

 while in all the remainder of their extent they consist merely in an ex- 

 cessive growth of the nymphae. This view of the subject is confirmed 

 by the fact that the length of the nymphaB varies greatly even in Europe, 

 and in general becomes more considerable in warm chmates, and that the 

 Negro and Abyssinian females are sometimes incommoded to such a de- 

 gree as to be compelled to extirpate them by fire or amputation. The 

 amount of this development observes no constant law among the Boschis- 

 mans. Blumenbach states that he is in possession of drawings of the 

 organs which were 8.5 inches in length, and they vary frequently in re- 

 spect to their form. 



This excrescence is evidently not the result of art, as all the Boschis- 

 man females possess it in their earliest youth ; and the female already 

 mentioned concealed it so carefully, and as though it were a deformity, 

 that its existence was not even suspected until after her death. 



The countenance of this Boschisman female presented an odious com- 

 bination of the Mongolian and Negro features. Her muzzle projected 

 still more than in the Negro, and the face was more flattened than in the 

 Calmuck; while the bones of her nose were smaller than in either. Her 

 breasts hung downwards in large masses, obliquely terminated by a black- 

 ish areola, about 4.3 inches in diameter, furrowed with radiated strise, in 

 the centre of which appeared a flat and almost obliterated nipple. The 



1 Liehtenst. Reise TI. 



2 Geoff, et F, Cuv. Hist. Mam — Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes. Par M. GeofFroy-Sainte-Hilaire ; et par M. Frederic Cuvier. P:iris V, Y 



3 Barvow's Narrative of a Journey amongst the Boushouanas ; and Campbell's Second Journey. 



4 Le Vaill. Voy. — Voyaj^e dans I'Interieur de I'Afrique, par le Cap de Bonne-Esperance l*^ Voyage, Paris, 1790 2*^ Voya^^e, 1795. 



5 Geoff, et F. Cuv. Hist. Mam. Femme Bosch, p. 5. 



