90 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



in some tribes varies from deep bronze to jet black, but most generally the latter 

 is the prevailing color. "^ I give this hypothesis as I find it. 



19. THE AUSTRO-AFRICAN FAMILY. 



South of the Caffers to the extremity of Africa, live the Hottentots, one of 

 the most singular varieties of the human species, and the nearest approximation 

 to the low^er animals. Their stature is of the mediate class, their persons large 

 and clumsy, vv^hile their limbs are generally better moulded than in the northern 

 Negroes. They have remarkably small hands and feet, which Sparrman considers 

 a characteristic mark of this nation. Their complexion is a yellowish brown, 

 compared by travellers to the peculiar hue of Europeans in the last stage of jaun- 

 dice. Others call it a bright olive. Their hair, which is black and woolly, is 

 attached to the scalp in small twisted tufts, but they are nearly destitute of beard. 

 The head is large, the forehead low and broad, and the face extremely wide between 

 the cheek bones, whence it retreats rapidly to a small, contracted chin. The eyes 

 are small and far apart, the nose very broad and flat, and the mouth large; and 

 the women are represented as even more repulsive in appearance than the men. 

 Notwithstanding these personal disadvantages, Kolbenf asserts that among many 

 thousand Hottentots who had come under his observation, he never saw a bandy 

 leg or a crooked limb, nor any other deformities, excepting two cripples only. 



The Hottentots have but very vague ideas of religious obligations, although 

 they are extremely superstitious. " The faults of which they are accused are, an 

 inveterate indolence and gluttony, devouring every kind of animal garbage that 

 falls in their way, without preparation, and when thus gorged they throw them- 

 selves down and sleep off the effects. That they are, however, capable of 

 improvement, is evident from the conduct of those formed into an armed corps 

 by the English, and who not only showed a sufficient degree of energy, but also 

 grew cleanly in their persons. "J 



The preceding remarks, however, apply chiefly to the Korans and the 

 adjacent tribes, some of whom are naturally docile and inoffensive, while others 

 have lost a part of their native rudeness by their proximity to the better sort of 

 European colonists. But the Bosjesmans are far more savage and degraded than 

 any other Hottentot tribes: Lichtenstein, indeed, maintains that they are a 



* Trav. in Southern Africa, II, p. 117. t Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 53. 



t TucKEY, Maritime Geog. Ill, p. lo. 



