136 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



least number of consonants of any language, possessing only 

 seven m, n, ng, p, r, t, v, 1 whilst the languages of the Sahap- 

 tin family in North America possess at least nine of them h, 

 k, I, m, n, p, s, if w. Hueck 2 says that the Esthonians, like 

 the Hottentots (W. v. Humboldt) are incapable of forming 

 the hissing sounds from the narrowness of the hard palate, 

 which perhaps also exists in other Finnish tribes. The pe- 

 culiar click of the Hottentots, which led many travellers to 

 consider their language as a mere chirping, deserves also men- 

 tion. Thunberg 3 and Levaillant 4 have only been able to dis- 

 tinguish three, but Van der Kemp distinguished six of these 

 sounds. 5 But as such clicking sounds have passed from the 

 language of the Hottentots into some words of the Amakosa 

 Kaffirs, and even into the language of the natives of Port Natal, 6 

 we can scarcely reduce the cause of this phenomenon to a pecu- 

 liarity in the organs of speech. That this peculiarity is not 

 an innate peculiarity of race, but merely a habit, is proved 

 by the circumstance, that the Hottentot children who have 

 passed their childhood among the white colonists, can on their 

 return home as little acquire these difficult sounds as the mis- 

 sionaries. 7 Information regarding the quality of voice in most 

 peoples, independent of the formation of speech sounds, is 

 almost entirely wanting. It is scarcely doubtful that in this 

 respect similar differences exist, as have been recently observed, 

 among ourselves namely, that among country people, even 

 among men, the voices are high ; but in the cities there are 

 more low voices, and that the former seem gradually to 

 diminish. That the voice of the Negro is rather low and 

 hoarse, and that of Negresses high and shrill, has already been 

 mentioned. The Kaffirs have generally deep bass voices 

 which are rarely found among the Hottentots. 8 



1 Hale, " Ethnogr. and phil. of the U. S. expl. exped.," p. 142, Philad. 1846 



2 " De craniis estonum," p. 9, 1838. 



3 " Iteise," ii, 61, 1792. 



4 " Erste Eeise," p. 289, 1790. 



5 Lichtenstein, " Reise," ii, p. 605. 



6 Thunberg, loc. cit. ; Lichtenstein, i, 637 ; Colenso, " Ten weeks in Natal, 

 p. 60, Cambridge, 1855. 



7 " Eheinische missionsberichte," p. 54, 1851. 



8 Moodie, "Ten years in S. Afr./' ii, p. 257, 1835. 



