196 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
hair and blue eyes have led to the impression that they were a 
distinct race. Dr. Tuke showed that the Cagots were not descen- 
dants of the Goths, and not a distinct race, but only a despised 
class among the people of the country. The present representatives 
of the Cagots are now only recognized by tradition, and not by 
their features, and are not distinguished by any peculiar mental or 
physical disorder, except when residing in an unhealthy locality. 
He then goes on to show that these outcasts have been such for a 
long period, that they are really the descendants of either, lepers 
labouring under a particular variety of leprosy, or affected with 
leucoderma ; and many were doubtless suspected of leprosy in 
consequence of some slight skin affection. Here we have a very 
curious instance of a survival. What was supposed to be origi- 
nally a sanitary precaution, as years went on developed into an 
unreasoning class hatred. 
African Anthropology was prominent in the proceedings of this 
department, and the papers of Commander Cameron and the 
Portuguese traveller, Major Serpo de Pinto, proved of much 
interest. The former gave a long account of the people of Urna 
(before referred to in his book Across Africa), a vast empire of 
Central Africa, governed by a king, who appointed chiefs to act in 
various districts under him and collect tribute. There was more 
trace of a centralization of religion in this nation than in any other 
known to Commander Cameron. The centre of the religion is an 
idol, held in such reverence that the people were afraid even to 
mention its name. It was kept somewhere in a jungle, but where 
the traveller could never find out. The king was mixed up with 
the cultus, and claimed and was accorded divine honours. Besides 
the great idol, there were a number of smaller ones, which were 
carried about and sold by the wizards, who, when they were con- 
sulted by the natives, put the questions to the idols, and obtained 
by means of a very poor kind of ventriloquism suitable replies. 
Caste was very clearly defined. No one was allowed to sit in the 
presence of the king except by permission, and no one of an 
inferior rank could sit if one of a superior grade was present. The 
natives part with their belongings with equanimity. The king at 
his discretion cuts off the hands, feet, ears, noses, and lips of his 
subjects, and the more a man or woman is mutilated in this way 
the more he seems to become attached to his chief. One of King 
Kasango's wives — he has a thousand only — offered to allow her 
