THE OCEANIC-NEGRO FAMILY. 91 



distinct people, speaking a language dijBerent from the Hottentots, and consti- 

 tuting the ultimate link in the scale of humanity. They are robhers by profession? 

 cruel by nature, and have such a passion for destroying, that when they attack 

 any of the herds belonging to the colonists, they will kill every animal they 

 cannot drive away, rather than leave any for the owner.* These Bosjesmans, 

 moreover, have the Hottentot features in their utmost ugliness, although their 

 predatory life gives more activity and animation to their appearance. Like the 

 New Hollanders, their eyelids become so much closed after middle life as to 

 conceal the whole of the eyeball, leaving an aperture just sufficient to admit the 

 light.f 



Their dwellings are mud hovels, bushes, caves and clefts in the rock, which 

 last often serve them in place of houses. — Many go naked, but others cover them- 

 selves in the simplest manner with the skins of animals killed in the chase. They 

 feed on flesh when they can get it, eating it either raw or cooked indifferently; but 

 their chief food consists of roots, berries and plants, whence their emaciated forms 

 and shrivelled skin.J They have but little better idea of cleanliness than the 

 brute creation ; and a curious fact is mentioned by Lichtenstein, who says that 

 many of the Hottentot tribes have a w^ay of crouching down to the water, and 

 throwing it into their mouths with the forefingers of both hands.§ 



20. THE OCEANIC-NEGRO FAMILY. 



The Oceanic-Negro 1 1 family is dispersed extensively through the Indian 

 Archipelago, and is also found in many islands of the Pacific. In the texture of 

 the hair, in the color of the skin, and in fact in every physical relation these people 

 are at once recognised as members of the great Negro race. M. Bory de St. 

 Vincent describes them from personal observation in the following terms : Their 

 physical characters consist in the color of the skin, which is even blacker than 

 that of the darkest Ethiopians ; the head is rounded, yet compressed in front and 

 at the sides, at the same time that the facial angle is not more acute than in other 

 Negroes : the hair is short and woolly, and more compact upon the head than in 

 any other people; the superciliary ridges and the cheek bones are extremely 



* Lichtenstein, Trav. in S. Africa, II, p. 50. t Burchell, Trav. in S. Africa, I, p. 459. 



X Sparrman, Trav. in Africa, I, p. 201. § Trav. in Africa, II, p. 48. 



II Called Melaniens (Homo melanicus) by Bory de St. Vincent. They have generally borne the 

 collective name of Papuas. See next section. 



