A NOTE ON ANTHROPOMETRY 
9 
is the mother tongue of aliens in blood. A good half of Germany 
is Slav in race though German in speech, and a good half of 
France is Latin in speech though German in race. To come 
near home, the Kavirondo plain is inhabited by people whose 
ancestors, many of them, were Bantu. Now they speak a 
language as far removed from any Bantu speech as English 
is from Chinese. 
It must not be thought that language is no guide at all. 
The villages in Kavirondo where Bantu was once spoken are 
still distinguishable by defects in pronunciation, vocabulary, 
and grammar, from villages of true Luo origin. English bears 
the marks, in its simplicity of structure, its absence of case 
and tense inflexions, of having been learnt laboriously and 
imperfectly by Celtic, Danish and Norman strangers. Swahili 
has undergone modifications of the same kind from the typical 
Bantu pattern, having been affected by successive Mohammedan 
invasions ; so has Hindustani from its older form. The rule 
is, accordingly, that the more elaborate the structure of a 
language the more likely it is to be spoken by a e pure ’ race, 
and the simpler the language the more mixed the race. The 
Australian aborigines, for instance, isolated as they have 
been for very many centuries, speak a language with such a 
detailed vocabulary and such an elaborate grammar that 
no European has ever learned to speak any of its dialects 
properly. 
If language is an uncertain guide religion is still less certain. 
In our age we have the spectacle of Europe, having learned 
its faith from Asia, teaching it back to Asia. The North of 
Africa was once the most solidly Christian part of Christendom, 
and Spain once the richest, most learned, and most glorious 
country in Islam. Buddha was a native of India, but few 
among the millions of his followers are found in India to-day. 
Nor do the customs embodying beliefs from which religions 
spring, persistent though they are, help us much. The use of 
the wedding ring, the Sun myth, sacrifice, and a score of other 
ancient customs and beliefs exist all over the world to-day, 
but have wandered so far from home, and have so changed 
in their wanderings, as to prove little but the deep differences 
of the learned. Even a definite institution like circumcision 
