79 
these, with the addition of green, are now so regarded in China. 
(See Geiger’s Contributions to the History of the Development 
of the Human Race — London, 1880, pp. 48 et seqq.) Hence, 
as the Rig-Yeda, the Zend-Avesta, the Old Testament, and 
the Homeric poems contain no reference to the sky as 
blue, it is argued that the peoples to whom these books 
belonged were incapable of discriminating the finer shades of 
colour. The weak part of such an argument is, that it may 
possibly confuse mere poverty of nomenclature with defec- 
tive perception. This in effect is the reply of Seydewitz 
and others who are not able to accept the theory propounded 
by Geiger. In the Kaffir language, although there are 
more than twenty-six distinct names for the colouring and 
coat of cattle, one term is used for both blue and green, 
although the people who use it are perfectly well able to 
tell the one from the other. If we take the savages of the 
present day we see no reason to suppose that their appreci- 
ation of colour is inferior to that of civilized races. On the 
contrary, it is a constant source of regret to see the genuine 
sesthetic qualities of aboriginal art supplanted by European 
importations, often inferior both in form and colour. Dr. 
Hahn, whose recent work on the Hottentot race has excited 
much and deserved attention, says : — “ that the Khoikhoi 
distinguished very strictly between white, black, green, red, 
blue, fawn-coloured, yellow, brown, grey and dotted. Then 
we have the following sub-divisions — whitish-yellow, whitish, 
black-patched, black-dotted, black-shining, red-shining, with 
white and red patches, chesnut-colour, reddish, green-shining, 
brown-dotted, 2 words, brownish-blue (the colour of Buce- 
phalus Capensis), brown-shining, like the Yipera Cornu ta. 
The colour of the rainbow is always green ; only in two 
cases I heard that it was considered to be red. The name 
of the rainbow is tsawirub and dabitsirule. In Bible trans- 
lations of missionaries we read tavi — ! hanab. This is very 
incorrect, and nothing else but a verbal translation of 
