CHAPTER XII.

Main features of the Falls--The return commenced--Frank Oates attacked by fever--Course of the illness; improvement and relapse--His death--Dr. Bradshaw takes his effects to Bamangwato--His favourite dog--Arrival of W. Oates and Mr. Gilchrist in Natal--Conclusion.

It is to be regretted that, from the time of his reaching the Zambesi till the date of his death five weeks afterwards, the entries in Frank Oates’s Journal are of the scantiest description. Indeed, the whole time that he was actually at the Falls he made no entries in it whatever. This may have been partly owing to the depressing condition of the atmosphere near the river at that time, which would make any exertion--even that of writing--burthensome; and partly from his relying on his memory for a faithful recollection of a scene at once so novel and so impressive. “After breakfast,” he writes on New Year’s Day, 1875, “I visited the Falls--a day never to be forgotten.” This is the sole entry in his Journal till the 14th of the month, when he was again back at the Pantamatenka.

And what gives especial cause for regret at the absence of any further entries in his Journal of this period is the fact that all the accounts of the Falls yet published have been given by those who visited the river in the dry season of the year. Of this number Edward Mohr may have suffered least from this disadvantage, for he was there in June 1870. Baines and Chapman were there together during parts of the months of July and August 1862; Livingstone was there, his first visit, in November 1855, his second in August 1860; and Baldwin, at the time of Livingstone’s second visit. On both occasions when Livingstone was at the Falls, the river, he remarks, was very low; and Chapman mentions that, when he and Baines were there, the water had recently fallen as much as seven feet. It remained for Frank Oates to visit the river at its fullest; at the very height, in fact, of the rainy season; but, unhappily, we are left without any results of his experience, except in the shape of a few pencil and two water-colour drawings he made upon the spot. The two latter have been selected for representation in this volume--one of them coloured, the other in the form of a woodcut. Before offering any explanation regarding these, it may be well to recall to the memory of the reader the main features of the Falls, as described by previous writers.

The river for some distance--at least two miles--above the Falls is of great width, and, flowing between hills some three or four hundred feet in height, presents to the eye a smooth open surface, dotted over by a number of picturesque, tree-covered islands. Where the Falls occur the river is upwards of a mile in width, and the Falls extend the whole of this distance, their line broken at intervals by dark projecting buttresses of rock, forming, some of them, small islands with trees upon their tops; whilst others, of much less size, present merely a bare and jagged surface. The Falls are occasioned by what appears to have been a rift in the original bed of the river--a rending asunder of the rock in the river-bed, over the edge of which the whole waters of the Zambesi are poured down into a deep, narrow gorge below, its width varying from something like eighty to a hundred yards. The water escapes from this deep abyss, where it boils and foams tumultuously after its descent, by a still narrower channel of from twenty to thirty yards in width, and apparently about the same depth as the fissure into which the water falls, the waters of the river being thus suddenly compressed into this narrow limit immediately after flowing through a bed upwards of a mile in breadth just above the Falls. The river after this proceeds by a zigzag course from east to west for about five miles, through a continuation of this narrow cutting, before it finally flows away in a more direct line eastwards. This outlet, Livingstone informs us,[60] is about 1170 yards from the western and 600 from the eastern end of the abyss, the river at the Falls flowing nearly due north and south, whilst the fissure which receives the water lies nearly east and west. At this point the rushing waters from either side unite after they have fallen. “The stream ...,” writes Chapman, in his account of the Falls, referring to this portion of the river,[61] “which here slackens its speed before the entrance, steals slowly round, at the solemn pace of a funeral procession, before it escapes from its confinement between the massive columns of rock.” The water here is of “that sombre green,” says Baines in his description,[62] “which indicates great depth; the moderate rapid formed in the narrow turn below the entrance rolling in that smooth, glassy swell, almost destitute of foam, which seems so gentle and proves so overpowering when one tries to stem it.”

It is the view from this point--“one of the prettiest and most comprehensive” that can be obtained of the Falls, says Chapman--that is represented in the preceding woodcut; in the foreground are seen the gliding waters flowing through the escape-channel, the spray of the falling cataract rising up beyond; whilst on the horizon, above that section of the Falls which is visible from here, extends the distant outline of one of the river’s banks. “This point,” writes Baines, “is the only spot, with the exception of the west end in calm weather, that is free enough from spray to allow the use of water-colours.”

And this brings us to our second illustration of the Falls, the coloured one, which is taken from the other point here mentioned--the west end of the cataract. In this picture is represented the first portion of the Falls, at the western extremity of the abyss, where the flow of the water over the edge is more broken than it is in many places further on (in at least one of which it continues, says Chapman, with “very little interruption” for a distance of a quarter of a mile or more), and apparently before the water in the bottom of the channel has commenced that tumultuous course which it afterwards pursues as it gathers volume further eastward. In the foreground and on the high land to the right is seen some of that brilliant tropical vegetation, the absence of which, except the evergreen part of it, was so regretted by Chapman at the time of his visit. “We see the scenery,” he wrote in July 1862, “at a great disadvantage just now, as this is the time of the ‘sere and yellow leaf.’” In January, when Frank Oates was there, the vegetation of course was at its best. The trees on the right in this picture, though looking little larger than bushes when viewed from this side, rise in reality--again to quote the authority of Chapman, who penetrated their shade--to a majestic height of from eighty to ninety feet, and constitute a dense forest, always moistened by the spray from the Falls.

The remaining most characteristic feature of the Falls represented in this drawing is that of the double rainbow spanning the abyss. The marvellous colouring of these rainbows, which are frequently visible here, has struck all who have beheld them; their “tints,” says Baines, “more beautiful than in England’s clouded climate one can ever dream of.” Whenever the sun falls upon the clouds of spray these rainbows are always present, sometimes two, sometimes three in number, and the brilliancy of their colouring can scarcely be exaggerated. “Rainbows,” writes Chapman in his description of the Falls, the first day he saw them, “so bright, so vivid, are never seen in the skies. The lower one in particular [on this occasion], probably from the contrast with the black-looking rocks below, was _too_ vivid, nay, almost blinding, to look upon, defying imitation by the most skilful artist and all the colours at his command, yet imparting its heavenly tints to every object over which it successively passed.” So marked a characteristic of the spot are these rainbows that it appears, according to Livingstone, the early native name of the Falls was “Chongwe,” signifying the Rainbow, or the Place of the Rainbow; a name, however, which has since given place to others. Frank Oates’s boys spoke of the Falls as Metse-a-tunya, a compound word, signifying “water-sounding;” whilst the name which Livingstone received for them, as used by the Makalolo at the time of both his visits, was not dissimilar, viz., Mosi-oa-tunya, or “smoke-sounding,” from the smoke-like appearance of the columns of spray which rise above the cataract.

With regard to the other general features of the Falls not referred to above but little remains to be added. Their actual height, as estimated by Livingstone, is about 360 feet from the top of the precipice to the surface of the water in the abyss; the columns of spray, which are driven upwards by the rush of air from the channel as the water descends into this narrow space, ascending to a height variously estimated by those who have seen them--and no doubt varying with the state of the atmosphere and the volume of water in the river at different times--at from six to eight hundred feet, or something over. It is these vapour clouds which, visible at a distance of upwards of twenty miles, as distinctly observed by Livingstone, mark the position of the Falls long before the traveller approaches them. Frank Oates, as seen in the preceding chapter, distinguished them at a distance of about eighteen miles, and his followers heard the roaring of the water at that distance, though he was not sure of doing so himself. Chapman, after he had left the Falls, heard them, he relates, “at a distance of fifteen miles on an elevated region in the south.”

Comparing the Falls with those of Niagara, Livingstone points out that they are twice the height of the latter; whilst, “in the amount of water, Niagara,” he says, “probably excels, though not during the months when the Zambesi is in flood.” It is unfortunate that no general view of the Falls, except a bird’s-eye one from the high ground some miles distant, can be obtained, owing to the vegetation on the south side of the fissure and the dense clouds of spray rising from the chasm. “But for this,” says Chapman, “the Victoria Falls, presenting one unobstructed view, would not alone have been the most magnificent, but the most stupendous, sight of the kind on the face of the globe.”

* * * * *

And now, resuming our story, the remaining incidents are soon related, the material for its completion being somewhat scanty. From the time of his arrival at the Falls till the date of his return to the Pantamatenka, Frank Oates made, as has been stated, no entries in his Journal. Again at the Pantamatenka, however, on the 13th, he made a few brief notes, remaining there till the 19th of the month, when Mr. Westbeach, now back from the Zambesi, also started southwards, accompanied by Dr. Bradshaw. Two of Frank Oates’s native servants were already by this time ill with fever, taken, no doubt, on the Zambesi, but the rest of the party so far continued well.

On the 25th, however, at the “pan” called Geruah, the beauty of which had struck him on his journey north, Frank Oates himself complained to his companions--for his own waggon and that of Mr. Westbeach were never far apart as they advanced--of slight headache, the usual precursor and accompaniment of African fever. In a couple of days, however, he was better again, so that he even went out hunting. But this apparent improvement unhappily proved delusive, and it soon became evident that he was suffering from an attack of fever. And now he continued for some days, with slight fluctuations, better and worse till the 29th, when his condition became alarming. Throughout his entire journey up country from the Makalakas as far as the Pantamatenka he had been engaged in taking careful observations of the country, and noting the various watering-places along the road, and this he continued to do on his way back, to check his former notes. His regular Journal had been again discontinued on the 22d, but he still made some brief jottings of the route until the 31st of the month, when, such was his condition, even these had also to be abandoned, and he continued very ill till the morning of the 5th of February, when there was a decided change in him for the better.

During the whole of this time Dr. Bradshaw had remained with or near him, and Mr. Westbeach had kindly lent him the services of one of his own boys, who could speak a little English. There was now every reason, so far as the traveller was himself concerned--and had been ever since he first showed signs of illness--for the party to make all speed upon their journey south. Once at Tati he would be in a place of comparative civilization, affording greater comfort for an invalid, and in a far better climate. Travelling is also usually found to be beneficial in most stages of this fever. They were, therefore, all now pushing forward to the Tati with the least possible delay.

On the morning of the 5th of February, as just stated, Frank Oates’s condition was much more favourable, and there may still presumably have been hope of his recovery, when, unfortunately, a point being reached during the day where some of his boys had to be paid off and discharged, the annoyance and excitement contingent on this circumstance--for at such times the boys always manage to be troublesome--brought on a relapse, and towards the afternoon of that day he again got worse. The party, as it chanced, were then in a part of the country where there was no water for the oxen, and were travelling with all haste to reach a place where they could get some; yet so alarming were Frank Oates’s symptoms, that towards evening Dr. Bradshaw, who was with his waggon, was obliged to order a halt. This occurred at a certain point in the journey, a little north of the same Makalaka kraal at which the traveller had already experienced so much trouble. He was now much exhausted, and Dr. Bradshaw got him to take some soup and a little brandy, and then left him for a few minutes to go to the other waggon. He had not been gone, however, many minutes, when Mr. Westbeach’s English-speaking boy, who had been left in charge, hurried after him, begging him to return at once, as a sudden change appeared to be taking place. This Dr. Bradshaw did--but only in time to find his companion sinking. Frank Oates tried to speak, but in so low a whisper that the other unhappily failed to catch his meaning, and a few minutes afterwards--about a quarter of an hour before sunset--the brave spirit sank peacefully to rest.

At this point in the journey it so happened that the ground was very hard and stony, and, even had it been otherwise, there was no spade or other implement at either of the waggons with which a grave could have been made; so, hearing that Piet Jacobs, the Dutchman, was near at hand, having been at a neighbouring kraal that morning buying corn, Dr. Bradshaw sent to him for assistance. Several others of the party were by this time ill with fever, and the man who took this message--John Mackenna--was so reduced that he was scarcely able to sit the horse he rode upon.

Jacobs, in reply, sent back word for the others to come on further, where the ground was less stony, and that he would meantime find a place suitable for the grave. With this suggestion Dr. Bradshaw willingly complied, and, travelling in the night, met Jacobs early the following morning about an hour’s journey at the other side of the kraal. Here the Dutchman, who was familiar with the country, had by this time found a spot well suited for the purpose. This was a disused game-trap, some eight feet in depth, at no great distance from the waggon-road so often traversed by the deceased, and placed by the side of a small stream or river flowing south. And here, in the deep repose of this silent spot, the traveller’s remains were laid in their last resting-place. His was a burial which well became in its simplicity a true lover, like himself, of Nature and her wilds.

This ended, it now devolved on Dr. Bradshaw to convey the waggon and effects of the deceased to Bamangwato, where he left them in charge of the Rev. John Mackenzie, himself returning soon afterwards to the Zambesi district. His attentions to the deceased during the last days of his illness must have materially added to the latter’s comfort, whose friends have reason to be thankful that he chanced thus accidentally to have been thrown into the company of a fellow-countryman at the close of his two years’ wanderings. His interesting collections, moreover, of natural history, a part of which he now had with him, might readily have been dispersed, and his goods plundered, had his death occurred amongst unfriendly natives, with no one at hand to be responsible for their custody; whilst, as it was, all these, with his waggon and outfit, and personal effects, were faithfully delivered by Dr. Bradshaw into the charge of Mr. Mackenzie at Bamangwato, there to await instructions from his relatives in England.[63]

One incident of Dr. Bradshaw’s journey should not be here omitted. It appears that many miles after they had left the grave, one of Frank Oates’s pointers--his favourite “Rail”--was found to be missing, and boys were sent back in search of him. These men sought long and wandered far in vain, till at length in their pursuit they got back even to the grave, and there, patiently watching, they found the devoted creature laid. A little longer, and he must inevitably have fallen a prey to lions or other wild beasts, but now he was taken down with his companion to Bamangwato, whence they were subsequently conveyed to England. And thus it happened that, whilst Frank Oates’s friends at home were rejoicing at the speedy prospect of his return, and wholly unsuspicious of the truth, this faithful dog was watching, the sole mourner, by his grave.[64]

The very day of Frank Oates’s death his brother William--returned from his yachting trip to Spitzbergen--sailed from England for South Africa, to join him, accompanied by Mr. Gilchrist, the gentleman already mentioned in these pages, whom the brothers had met when they first reached Durban two years previously, and had afterwards travelled with in the interior, William Oates having returned with him to England. The day these two sailed from England--about an hour before the vessel left--letters were brought to them on board from Frank Oates, which had only just reached the country, giving a full account of all his plans, and of his wanderings up to the end of the October previous. The two friends reached Durban on the 15th of March, and at once commenced preparations for proceeding up country to meet the returning traveller. Mr. Selous, who had met Frank Oates at Tamasancha, as mentioned in the previous chapter, had now come down from the interior, and reported having seen him early in December, then on his way to the Zambesi and in perfect health. There was indeed just at this time, as it happened, a report at Pietermaritzburg that the traveller had died of fever in the interior, but--as subsequently proved by a comparison of dates--this report had certainly no foundation in the actual fact, and was found on enquiry at the time to be unsupported by any reliable evidence. The preparations already in progress for a speedy start into the interior, to meet him on his way back, were therefore still proceeded with, and waggons, oxen, and all the necessary outfit got ready for the purpose.

Another week and William Oates and his friend would have started on their way northwards, when--on the 1st of April, a fortnight only after their arrival--authentic intelligence reached them of Frank Oates’s death in the interior. The object of proceeding on the journey was now therefore completely changed, and, to enable William Oates to return at once to England and there offer to his bereaved mother such comfort as he might be able, his friend Mr. Gilchrist, in no common spirit of self-sacrifice, himself insisted on taking the sad journey alone into the interior--to bring down thence and convey to England all the deceased’s effects; to hear such particulars as he could of his death, for the satisfaction of his friends at home; and if possible--a service attended with especial difficulties--to visit the grave, and place over it, to mark the spot, a stone prepared for this purpose in Pietermaritzburg.

Gratefully availing himself of this generous offer, William Oates sailed for England on April 22d, having first seen Mr. Gilchrist leave Pietermaritzburg with two waggons, on his way up country; a sort of departure very different from that which either of them had anticipated. The journey undertaken by Mr. Gilchrist--under any circumstances a laborious and trying one enough--was rendered doubly so by the sad object with which he started; nor did he return till every purpose of the journey had been fulfilled. For not only did he bring safely to the coast--and subsequently to England--the large collections of natural history specimens and curiosities, and the notes and journals of his travels which Frank Oates had made, as well as his two pointers, “Rail” and “Rock,” but, in spite of the obstacles opposed to his progress at the Tati, he even proceeded to the spot where the traveller’s remains had been laid, and on his way back succeeded in obtaining an interview on the Ramaqueban River with Dr. Bradshaw, from whom he learnt the few additional particulars of his death which could be supplied, and which have been embodied in the preceding narrative.[65]

For this twofold purpose--of reaching the grave and seeing Dr. Bradshaw--Mr. Gilchrist, on reaching Bamangwato, had gone on thence with both his waggons as far as the Tati settlement, where he arrived on the 18th of July. There he found the same difficulty of proceeding further which Frank Oates himself had often previously encountered, a great fear still prevailing amongst the natives of “red water”--the Natal cattle disease--being brought into their country, and Lobengula having recently sent strict orders to the kraals on the outskirts of his territory to keep all waggons from Natal from attempting to cross their boundaries. Fortunately, however, it happened that the Dutchman, Piet Jacobs, was now at Tati, who had not only selected the spot for the late traveller’s grave, but was also intimately acquainted with the whole of the surrounding district, and who had, besides, a general permission from the king to enter his country when, and as often as, he pleased; for keeping, as he did, his oxen standing at Tati, when he was not out with them in the veldt himself, there was little fear of his introducing the dreaded disease into the country. With him therefore, as guide, Mr. Gilchrist was speedily enabled to make a start northwards; and, on the afternoon of the fifth day from the date of their leaving Tati, came to the point in the waggon-road where they had to leave it, in order to go down to the river’s side to reach the grave. Mr. Gilchrist found it placed about six hundred yards to the left of the road, in a situation of much natural beauty, surrounded by low picturesque hills, and with trees of varied growth and foliage scattered at intervals over the grassy sward. The grave itself, over which a number of large stones had been placed when it was first made, was found quite undisturbed, and amongst these Mr. Gilchrist now inserted at its foot the small white stone, neatly cut, which he had brought from Pietermaritzburg for the purpose, bearing this simple inscription--“Frank Oates, F.R.G.S., of Meanwoodside, Leeds, England; died 5th February 1875, aged 34 years.” Then, the task of friendship faithfully performed, he returned without delay to England.

Nor had this journey, painful in its objects and associations, been entirely free, on Mr. Gilchrist’s part, from privations and anxieties of a graver kind. Water upon the road had many times been scarce (on one occasion he was without any for his oxen--twenty-nine in number--for as much as seventy hours); the season was one of exceptional heat and drought, and the time occupied on the journey was unavoidably considerable.

And here, before concluding, it may be mentioned that at Tati, Bamangwato, or wherever he met those who had become acquainted with Frank Oates in this country, Mr. Gilchrist found but one opinion expressed concerning him. Many were the kindnesses treasured in men’s minds and now related, which he had rendered to those he had encountered in his travels; whilst, on the other hand, he had himself apparently been no less fortunate in the kindly services he had received from others. Friends had arisen where he least expected them, beyond the pale of European civilization, from each of whom he parted in turn with a consciousness of mutual regret. Such was the way in which he drew all hearts towards him; and after his death, the good offices of those who loved or esteemed him in his lifetime were generously placed at the service of his family. Conspicuous amongst this number stood the Rev. John Mackenzie, of Bamangwato, and Mr. F. A. Hathorn, of the Standard Bank, Pietermaritzburg, the former of whom undertook the duties of executor for the arrangement of his affairs in the interior, whilst a like responsibility was accepted by the latter for the settlement of matters in Natal. Nor was it only what these two gentlemen did, but even more the manner of their doing it, which placed the traveller’s relatives under a lasting sense of obligation to them, and served not a little to soothe the first bitterness of their affliction.

And now this brief history of the efforts and too early extinction of a devoted life, otherwise it may be conjectured destined to have rendered no mean service in the extension of scientific knowledge and research, may be concluded with a few words, written soon after his death by Mr. Mackenzie to one of his brothers with reference to the position of his grave. “Lonely the spot, no doubt,” he writes, “is, in a certain sense; but, in another, your brother’s grave is surrounded by all the activities of the great Creator and Father of all. Flowers will blossom around it, though not planted by mortal hand; birds will sing over it, and never weary in repeating the sweet notes which Nature has taught them. I have not been there myself, but I have no doubt the naturalist would not think your brother’s grave a lonely spot; whilst to the Christian such a spot is the quiet resting-place to which the body sank when the spirit was called away by God the Father.”

APPENDIX.

I.

ETHNOLOGY.

By GEORGE ROLLESTON, M.D., F.R.S.

Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the University of Oxford.

The following human bones--viz. four skulls, six lower jaws, four cervical vertebræ, one large and one small sized scapula, two small sized and fragmentary humeri, a fragment of a very slight but adult ulna, four cervical vertebræ, and five more or less fragmentary ribs--have been put into my hands by Mr. C. G. Oates, with information to the effect that they had belonged probably to a Bushman horde massacred somewhere between the Tati and Ramaqueban rivers, in S. lat. 20° 54′, and long. 27° 42′. With these human bones came some bones of _Equus_ (_caballus_ or _zebra?_); also of one large ruminant (_Bos taurus_ or _Bos caffer_), and one smaller; and part of the skull of an ostrich (_Struthio camelus_); and, later, the feet-bones of an elephant (_Elephas africanus_). All these bones had been collected by my former pupil, Mr. Frank Oates, of Christ Church, Oxford. The four skulls had not their lower jaws assigned to them; but to three of them jaws were assignable, which in all probability had really belonged to them, being very exactly coadaptable, to say nothing of their having been sent in company with them and with certain cervical vertebræ. These six lower jaws are by far the most important bones as regards the question of the nationality of the entire “find.” If, indeed, these half dozen lower jaws had been brought to me with no other accompaniments and with no other information than that they had been all brought from one spot in Africa, I think I should have been justified in saying that they had belonged to no other known African race than the Khoi-Khoin, or its Central African representative, the Akka. For they all six alike show the following distinctive and eminently significant peculiarities--viz. lowness of coronoid process, smallness of absolute size, and all but complete obsolescence of chin. Upon this I have already commented in _British Barrows_, pp. 706, note 1, 707, 716, _ibique citata_, comparing these lower jaws with the jaws of certain other confessedly “priscan” races, which differ from them in little but in being larger in size. It is, or should be, a commonplace among craniographers that, whilst the lower jaw is a more important bone for their purposes than any other single bone of the skeleton, and even than the pelvis itself, it is often more distinctive, if not more valuable, than at least the entire _calvaria_. Certainly this is the case with African skulls; for though it is possible enough, as was long ago pointed out by Professor Owen (see _Osteological Catalogue, Royal College of Surgeons of England_, 5385, p. 838, 1853, and for a contradictory statement Retzius, _Ethnol. Schriften_, 1864, p. 149), and as has recently been reaffirmed by Dr. Hamy in Paris, to find brachycephalic skulls among those of undoubted Negro races, and though, as I can aver from my knowledge of the collections in the Oxford University Museum, it is by no means always possible to distinguish either such brachycephalic Negro skulls, or certain other Negro skulls of the dolichocephalic type more usual amongst such skulls, from Bushman skulls of the respective proportions, both of which are represented in this latter series, it is within my knowledge always possible to do this if the skulls under comparison are in possession of the lower jaws belonging to them. The Negro’s lower jaw may or may not have the poorly-developed chin so constant in the lower jaws of the Bushman, and but rarely seen in the lower jaws of higher races; it may or may not have its anterior teeth sloping forwards in correlation with a prognathic upper jaw; it may or may not, I apprehend, though I have not met with such cases, be as a whole as small and feeble as the jaws of the Bushman have, with my knowledge, invariably been; but it never has shown, so far as I know, the low coronoid process, the shallow signoid notch, and the wide ramus so very commonly, or indeed all but invariably, found amongst not only the Bushman but the Eskimo race. The existence of this peculiarity not only in these two races so widely separated in space, though so nearly on a level in certain linguistic as well as certain other points of degradation, but also in so many of the lower jaws of the earliest representatives of our species, gives it a great morphological importance; and this morphological importance is not a little enhanced when we consider a second fact, drawn from a wholly alien line of contemplation, that, namely, which shows us that teleological adaptation to special needs, or necessities rather, as to dealing with food, has nothing to do with it. The fact of six lower jaws all alike exhibiting this striking peculiarity, which may be shortly described by saying that it resembles the conformation seen in the Gibbon, whilst the larger anthropoid apes show the coronoid developed into a prominence which comes much more nearly into resemblance with that usual in our own species, is to my mind very strong evidence to the effect that we have here six Bushman jaws before us. In all of these lower jaws we find the angle roughened and projecting outwards in correspondence with the insertion of fibres of the masseter, and thereby giving a greater width to the lower portion of the face; whilst, internally, the surface below the inferior dental foramen is remarkably concave, owing in some cases to a general though slight inversion of the lower portion of the ramus, and in others to a thinning of the bone in the region between the alveolar process, in the region of the last molar, and the angle thickened at once by the insertions of the masseter and of the pterygoid. Of the four skulls one only fails to find a lower jaw which will in any way admit of coadaptation to it, and this skull being exaggeratedly dolichocephalous as well as of much larger size and proportions than the other three, may very well be supposed to have belonged to one of the attacking and not to one of the attacked tribe; for I apprehend that in massacres, at least of Bushmen, the killing is not usually all on one side. The “reports,” indeed, both of their enemies and of their friends, assure us that a Bushman at bay is a foe by no means to be despised, and that, though little, he is fierce. And I can say for those three crania that their _tout ensemble_, as compared with that of Abantu skulls placed alongside of them, impresses me with the same kind of feeling which, after detailed measurements, I have felt in comparing the crania of Lapps with those of races such as the Finns living close to them. They appear to me, in fact, to indicate that their owners were of a smaller race than the owners of the skulls beside them, though the Bushman is not always a mere dwarf, as is sometimes stated. The feebleness of the two humeri, and even more notably of the fragment of ulna, and the small size of the cervical vertebræ, and of one of the two scapulæ accompanying these bones, tells in the same direction, but does not prove feebleness of mind.

For purposes of comparison with these three presumably Bushman crania, I have had three other crania at hand from the University Museum, of the genuineness of which there can be little doubt. One of these was presented to the University Museum by the late and much-lamented Dr. W. H. J. Bleek, to whose labours[66] in elucidating the language and rescuing the folklore of the Bushman tribe from perishing we owe so much. This skull, which was brought to England by Mr. Alfred Hughes of St. Asaph, bears a label, “Eland’s Bun, nr. Schintpriten,[67] Bushman’s skull,” and was handed over to me by that gentleman at the desire of Dr. Bleek. A second skull came into my hands through the kindness of W. G. Marshall, Esq. of Colney Hatch, having been entrusted to him by George Dunsterville, Esq., of Port Elizabeth, Algoa Bay, S. Africa, who was for some years surgeon to the hospital at Port Elizabeth. This skull, which, like the preceding, belonged to an exceedingly old man, carries the following labels:--“From the Transvaal, S. African Republic;” “Of an original Bosjesman, a tribe of small Hottentots, now nearly extinct; over age; height, 4 ft. 4 in.” The evidence for the authenticity of the third Bushman cranium which was in the University Museum previously to the arrival of Mr. Oates’s consignment, is even more irrefragable. This cranium was procured for the University through the kindness of H. N. Moseley, Esq., F.R.S., from Mr. Fairclough of Cape Town, and with the cranium came a knife, a poison-pot, a quiver, a poisoned arrow, and an ivory wrist-protector which had belonged to the owner of the skull. This skull belonged to a man past the middle period of life, and is remarkable for its absolute height, no less than 5·⅖ in.; which, however, falls short of its absolute width, which is no less than 5·6 in., by which inferiority the tapeinocephalic or platycephalic character which Mr. Busk (_Journal Ethn. Soc._, London, Jan. 1871) insisted upon as existing in Bushman crania, is preserved in it as well as in the two other crania just specified.

Retzius, in a paper first published in Swedish in 1856, subsequently in German in Müller’s _Archiv._ for 1858, and fully republished in the posthumously issued (1864) _Ethnologische Schriften_, p. 149, after saying that he had before him only a single skull of a Hottentot, and the figures which Blumenbach and Sandifort had published of Hottentot and Bushman crania, declares himself unable to detect any essential difference between such skulls and those of true Negroes. His great authority, therefore, should not be quoted to the disfavour of craniological evidence in this or any other similar question, inasmuch as he only speaks, and avowedly, from very scanty materials.

If we begin our comparison of these two sets of crania by a reference to the great distinction pointed out by Retzius himself, of brachycephalic from dolichocephalic crania, we have in the first place to demur to the statement, “In Afrika, fehlt, so viel man bisher weiss, jede Spur brachycephalischer Bevölkerung.” Against it have to be set in the first place Professor Owen’s words in the old _Osteological Catalogue_ 1853, p. 838, 5385, already referred to, and in the second, Professor Flower’s measurements (as recorded in the new _Catalogue of the Specimens illustrating the Osteology and Dentition of Vertebrated Animals_, pt. i. 1879, p. 232, 1238), of the “articulated skeleton of a Negress, born in the United States of North America, and about 16 years of age,” who was said, presumably by the donor, Professor L. J. Sanford of Yale College, “to have presented all the external characters indicating purity of race,” the cephalic or latitudinal index of the crania belonging to this skeleton being no less than ·811. But though this be so, there is no doubt, firstly, that the immense majority of Negro, and of Caffre and Abantu crania are dolichocephalic, and some such, for example as the Mozambique skull, casts of which were given by the late J. South, Esq., F.R.S., to many museums, exaggeratedly so; and secondly that the cephalic index of the Bushman is considerably higher on the average than that of the Negro. One of my six Bushman crania (that named No. 1, Mr. F. Oates, 788e), has a cephalic index of ·81, being equal to that of the Negro girl just mentioned in the College of Surgeons’ Museum; and though one of the six has but ·70 for its cephalic index, still the average of the six is as much as ·75, and Professor Flower’s six give us an average of ·768 as against one of ·731 for the circumambient “Zulus and Kaffirs,” and against one of ·736 for “African Negroes of various tribes.”

The altitudinal index is as significant as, if not more significant than, the latitudinal; and the tapeinocephalic or platycephalic character of the Bushman as compared with the two other assemblages of Africans just mentioned, is expressed by the figures ·716, as against altitudinal indices for them of ·741 and ·735 respectively. The average of the altitudinal indices of my six Bushman crania is ·72, the height exceeding the breadth in two cases only, and in each of them by one-tenth of an inch only.

As important a question to ask about a skull as either of the two relating to the two indices just mentioned, is, to my thinking, the question, does the cranium when resting, in the absence of its lower jaw, with the grinding surfaces of its teeth on a flat surface, touch that surface posteriorly with its occipital condyles, or with its inferior occipital squamæ? Accordingly as the former or the latter portions of the occipital bone give support posteriorly to a skull so placed, is the cranial curvature lesser or greater, and with it the antero-posterior arc described by the brain it contains. Tried by this test, first suggested by Prof. Ecker (_Archiv. für Anthrop._, iv. 1870, p. 288), the six Bushman crania in the museum whence I write, have four of their number resting on the occipital squamæ, as opposed to two which show the lesser curvature. I incline to think that this is a higher average than West Coast Negro crania would show, but Abantu skulls are very frequently so well developed as to have a considerable interval left between their occipital condyles and a flat surface, touching anteriorly the grinding surface of their teeth, and posteriorly their _conceptacula cerebelli_.

Another important point given us in that most instructive of _normæ_, the _norma lateralis_, is that of the junction or non-junction of the squamous to the frontal. This question is easily answered, as in no single one of my six Bushman crania does the squamous approximate itself at all more closely to the frontal than it would do in an equal number of European crania. Indeed, in all but one of these crania the alisphenoid is wide from before backwards, as though to furnish adequate lodgment for the temporo-sphenoidal lobe of the cerebrum, which, we know, alike from Gratiolet (_Mémoire sur les Plis Cérébraux_, p. 97), and Professor John Marshall (_Phil. Trans._, MDCCCLXIV, p. 510), to take a large development in the Bushman race.[68]

I have in the next place to draw attention to a striking qualitative or morphological peculiarity observable in no less than three out of my six Bushman crania; this being the presence either of a perfect, or of a rudimentary division of the malar bone into two distinct parts. The skull presented by Dr. Bleek presents us with a perfect rectangular suture, bilaterally symmetrical, as is usually the case with this suture both when it is and when it is, as here, not, rudimentary. In the two skulls, 788_e_ and 788_g_, collected by Mr. Frank Oates, the suture is rudimentary, being represented in each skull by a bilaterally symmetrical fissure running horizontally forwards from the zygomatico-malar articulation.[69] When I add to these observations the fact that similar sutures have not within my knowledge and research been observed in other African crania of any of the varieties living on that continent, it will be seen that the presence of them in these skulls goes a considerable way, when coupled with other considerations, towards making it pretty certain that they were of Bushman nationality. Further investigation of the distribution and non-distribution of this most significant suture amongst the several typical races of men, lends some additional force to this argument, and is besides not a little suggestive as to other views. In the Oxford University collection of crania I have not found any traces of it amongst 47 Australian, nor amongst our five Tasmanian crania, nor amongst our Stone age crania, a series well represented here. The only other race of indisputably pristine and very pristine habits, in which I have observed it to exist, is the Eskimo, and out of a large number of such skulls I have only noted it once, in the form of bilaterally symmetrical fissure. The other skulls which this museum contains possessing this suture either well or rudimentarily developed, are six in number. Four are presumably either of the Malay or of the Chinese race, as two were collected by Captain Elmhirst of the 9th Regiment, from the sea-shore of an island in the Chinese Seas, out of a great quantity which were lying about unburied, and were supposed to have belonged to Chinese pirates, and were finally presented to the University museum by the Rev. H. Hansell, Fellow of Magdalen College; as a third was the skull of a female Moro, collected in the mountains of Sulu, and presented by Captain Chimmo, R.N.; whilst the fourth was purchased from Mr. Cutter, the dealer in Natural History specimens, as being a Borneo pirate. The other two are from Ceylon, one being a Tamil from Central Ceylon, presented by Mr. B. F. Hartshorne, who was himself for a considerable time resident in the island, and has written upon its ethnology; the other being a “Malabar.” As the absence of this suture from the Zulu and Negro series gives additional importance to its presence in the Bushman, so its absence, which I have noted in a considerable number of Præaryan skulls, such as those of the Coles and Moosahurs, procured for me by William Duthoit, Esq., D.C.L., gives additional importance to its presence in “Malabars,” “Tamils,” Malays, and Chinese. Of course further research may discover this suture in other races of mankind; as the matter stands at present I am tempted to think that there is possibly some significance in its having been noticed in the Eskimo, the Bushman, in certain races of the Eastern Archipelago, and in Tamil skulls, as well as in the fact of its having been found to be absent in certain other skulls also of ancient races, such as the Kolarian and the Australian.[70]

The main sutures I think have perhaps something peculiar about them, this consisting in their being made of denticulations which are complex but shallow, contrasting thus with the complex but deep denticulations of well developed European, and the coarse but shallow ones of Australian, crania.

The verticality of the forehead observable in so many Bushman, and, indeed, in so many other African crania, is correlated with the comparative feebleness, and consequent lightness, of their lower jaws, which renders it unnecessary[71] that the brain and brain case should be rotated backwards to counterbalance the facial skeleton and to maintain the visual axis in a horizontal or semihorizontal plane.

I have appended to this paper the measurements given by Professor Flower, in his recently issued (1879) _Catalogue_, of the six Bushman crania in the College of Surgeons’ Museum, pp. 246, 247, and also the same measurements, as taken by myself, of the six Bushman crania in the Oxford University Museum. The very close correspondence of the two sets of measurements will strike any one who will compare the columns which give the averages of the two sets. The fact may be expressed in technical language by saying that both lists coincide pretty nearly in showing that, as Professor Flower has phrased it at p. 255, _l.c._, the Bushman cranium is “mesaticephalic,” “orthognathous” (or, at least, mesognathous, my average being 98, which is “mesognathous,” as against Professor Flower’s 97·8, which is just below the limits of mesognathy), “platyrrhine,” “microseme,” and “microcephalic.”

By a comparison of my measurements, not with those of Professor Flower, but with my own records of the history of each skull, an even more surprising and more important fact, in the way, however, not of coincidence but of the reverse, is brought to light. The most aberrant of the six in the matter of measurements is the very skull about the authenticity of which there is the most perfect certainty. This is the skull presented by Mr. Fairclough, with which were sent the articles specified above, as the characteristic of the Bushman race. But the skull itself is, in almost every important particular, different from the five other crania here measured with it. Its circumference and cubical capacity, its length, breadth, and height, and their indices, its orbital and nasal indices, are all alike aberrant from the average. It certainly would not have entered into the head of any craniographer to refer this skull to the Bushman variety of our species, unless he had been informed of the character of its accompaniments. A morphological point which might have served to indicate the character of its owner--I mean the feebleness of the nasal spine, a shortcoming more or less evident in all, or nearly all, Bushman crania--does not help us here; for we observe in this skull that the line of symphysis of the two halves of the upper jaw rises here anteriorly, as it does sometimes in European jaws, into a raised double ridge, which, though it slopes gradually into the plane of the alveolar border, and does not rise into a sharply-defined angular spine, and so far falls short of the typical “anterior nasal spine,” is yet a very different thing from the very feebly-developed bifid process of ordinary Bushmen, and many other African and other savage jaws.

The question arises, how are we to interpret these facts? We may explain them by saying that the elasticity and plasticity of the type is such as to admit of the escape of an exceedingly aberrant individual, and its homogeneity and plasticity, nevertheless, also such as to allow of its walls joining again, and restoring the perfect circumscription which is implied in our speaking of the race as possessing well-defined limits. Or lovers of logical consistency, who may not be extensively acquainted with the width over which variability may extend itself, may prefer to suggest that some kind of error may attach or have been attached to the identification of this particular cranium. It is possible, I suppose, that a runaway Caffre, or even an outcast white man, may have betaken himself to some horde of Bushmen, and identified himself with their manners and customs, and adopted their dress and equipment. Such voluntary degradations are known to have taken place, with the consequence of the refugee becoming not merely “half a savage,” but rather, as shown by the place and precedence given to him, “a savage and a half;” or, finally, the owner of this skull may really have been a cross between a white man and a female of the Bushman stock. To this last explanation I myself incline.

As regards the condition of the teeth, the skull presented by Mr. Fairclough, though referred by me to a man in the middle period of life, has only some seven or eight teeth, comparatively little worn, left _in situ;_ the rest have been lost, and traces of two or three large alveolar abscesses, and great absorption elsewhere of the alveolar processes are very evident. Alveolar abscesses have similarly left their traces in the skull presented by Dr. Bleek, in which, however, the teeth have been very much worn down, though only one or two have been lost during life. The skull presented by Mr. Dunsterville had lost all its teeth, save the two central incisors, during life, and the alveolar processes have suffered a very large amount of absorption in this senile skull.

Of the entire series, as the figures giving the length of the circumference and the cubic capacity show most plainly, we can predicate smallness; the average of the latter measurement being but 1285 as against 1485 cub. cent. obtained by Professor Flower for the cubage of seven Caffres and Zulus, and, indeed, as against 1330 from his measurement of his available Bushman crania.

With this small capacity is combined, which is by no means always the case in crania of races low in the scale of human life, a short basi-cranial axis, with an average length of no more than 93 millimetres.

In none of these six skulls is the patency of the frontal suture, which corresponds very usually to a wide receptacle for the frontal lobes of the brain, observable. On the other hand, the zygomata do not come into view, when the skull is held out so as to present its norma verticalis at arm’s length to one eye of the observer, with the invariability which might have been expected. In two only of these six skulls are both zygomata seen at the same time when the skull is held in this position; in three the zygoma of the left side only is seen; and in one neither zygoma comes into view. But these skulls, as is often the case in skulls of flesh-eating savage races, are of considerable density, and a greater thickness of walls as well as a greater development of the contents of a skull may prevent it from being phœnozygous. One other condition indeed, that of considerable development of the malar arch, which produces phœnozygy, is present in Bushmen, as in the skulls of other races exposed to the sun and glare, and other irritants of the eyes; but its working is countervailed by that of thickness of the cranial walls. All the Bushman skulls examined by Dr. Fritsch were broad in the sphenoparietal diameter (see his _Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s_, 1872, p. 413). With two exceptions, those constituted by the skull procured by Mr. Fairclough and that presented by Dr. Bleek, the supraciliary ridges and glabellæ are comparatively feebly developed.

The parietal tubera, or the spots on the external surface of the cranium corresponding to them, are placed far back in all these crania, and what I have elsewhere spoken of at some length[72] as the antero-posterior index, is consequently high. The same remark, however, may be made of Zulu and other Abantu crania.

It has often been stated that the ears in Bushmen are huge, misshapen, and outstanding. According, however, to trustworthy accounts of Professors Marshall and Flower, and Dr. Murie and Professor Wyman _(Proc. Boston Nat. History Soc._, ix. 1862, p. 56), the small size of the lobule appears to be the only constant character of this organ which is distinctive. (See Fritsch, _l.c._, p. 410.) Much that has been written on the peculiarity known as “steatopyga” in our own species might have been spared if what the great naturalist Pallas had written on the similar development called by the same name in one of the most widely spread varieties of the sheep, had been studied in the wonderful eleventh Fascicle of his _Spicilegia Zoologia_, from p. 63 to p. 69. I will quote only a few of the sentences of Pallas’s account, p. 64:--“In his quidem generalioribus, præsertim deformatione caudæ et auribus pendulis greges omnes conveniunt quas Nomades diversarum gentium Asiæ possident. Sed varias a temperie cœli, pascuis, aliisque causis vel cultura apud varias hasce gentes mutationes passæ sunt et ad Russos translatæ patiuntur. In Tatariæ Magnæ desertis occidentalibus, a Volga usque ad Irtin et Altaicum jugum, pascua maximam partem sunt aridissima, abundant vernalibus plantis acribus et liliaceis; postea æstate in elatis locis quæ maxime lanigerum pecus amat præter siccissima gramina, stipas similiaque, nil nisi artemisias amaras aromaticas, camphorosmam et salsolas succo et salibus abundantes servant. Ubique simul abundant lacunæ natroso, culinari, glauberianoque sale efflorescentes, et aquæ in desertis iisdem raræ plerumque iisdem salibus fœtæ sunt. Quæ quidem omnia ovium corpulentiæ maxime convenire pastores Europæi quoque norunt. Accedit vitæ genus et cultura.”...

Page 67.--“Sequitur ex istis deforme istud pulvinar sive uropygia quod in locum caudæ apud hanc varietatem ovium successit maximeque constantem ejus characterem prœbet superfluæ generatione pinguedinis ortum debere atque in campis salsuginosis Tatariæ occidentalioris primam patriam habuisse. In genere videmus certas corporis partes, illas puto præsertim, in quibus lentior sanguinis circulus obtinet, collectioni pinguedinis in textu cellulose maxime favere.”

Page 68.--“Orta ilia semel circa caudam collectio pinguedinis, veluti genialis morbus per generationes sensim adauctus fuit.”

As regards the distinctiveness of steatopyga, or, in other words, as regards the reason which by polygenist writers it was supposed to furnish for considering the Hottentot and Bushman races as specifically distinct from other human beings, there is no need to refer to the analogy which the steatopygous sheep suggests. For as Hartmann (_Die Nigritier_, p. 489, 1876) states, it is found also among Berber and Negro tribes, such as the Maqwa the Denqa, and the Bonqo, and, it may be added, that it may be seen figured in the English translation of Schweinfurth’s _Heart of Africa_, by Ellen E. Frewer, vol. ii. p. 121.

As against the ethnological significance of the hypertrophy of the nymphæ, which constitutes the “viel besprochene Hottentotten-Schurze,” the case is still stronger. For not only may this peculiarity be found amongst other African races, such as the Berber, Egyptian, and Negro (according to Hartmann, _l.c._ p. 489), and the Abantu and Sudan natives (according to Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen_, pp. 282, 283), where its presence might be reasonably explained by reference to peculiarities of diet or climate, but it may, according to Hartmann, be paralleled by observation carried on in the very different surroundings of North Europe. The words of the last-named authority, whose intimate acquaintance at once with Africa and Prussia will not be questioned, are to the following effect: “Die viel besprochene Hottentotten-Schurze ist für Jemanden welcher fleissig die geburtshülfliche Station oder den Secirsaal einer grösseren Universität, z. B. Berlin besucht, auch Berber, Aegypter, und Nigritierfrauen ganz nackt gesehen hat, kein auszeichnendes Rassenmerkmal mehr.”[73]

The old view which ascribed a Mongolian origin to the Khoi-Khoin races is now pretty generally given up. A more important subject would, if I had space, be furnished me for discussion in the recent discoveries in Central Africa,[74] which appears to point to the existence of kinship between the pigmy Akka and Obongo tribes and the Bushman.

The main points which appeared to former writers to indicate Mongolian affinities are the yellow as opposed to the black colour of the skin, the prominence of the cheek bones, and the supposed obliquity of the opening of the eyelids. This last peculiarity, as Fritsch (_Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s_, p. 286) has shown, is due simply to the disagreeable necessity of keeping the eyelids constantly half-closed, owing to the glare and, as others have pointed out, the sandflies, to which these homeless savages are self-exposed. The Swiss Professor, Schiess-Gemuscus, of Basle, has similarly explained the causation of snow-blindness (see _Archiv. für Ophthalmologie_, xxv. 3, p. 173), by reference to the blepharospasmus and conjunctivitis, produced by the dryness and the glare of the upland snowfield; and I apprehend that the osseous structures underlying the organs protecting the eye may be reasonably supposed to undergo some modification in correlation with the increased demand for work, which “blepharospasmus” expresses as being thrown upon the muscular structures which they support. Thus the prominent malar arch and the forwardly projecting outer segments of the orbit, as seen alike in the Mongolian of the treeless steppe, in the Eskimo of the snow-desert, and the Bushman of the sun-burnt South African uplands, may receive a physiological as opposed to a morphological explanation. But, when we come further to consider the structure and composition of the various segments of the orbital ring in these races, we find combined with this physiologically explicable similarity a very considerable morphological difference. This is constituted by the conformation of the nasals, which in the Bushman form invariably an all but level plane between the nasal processes of the maxillaries, and contribute, being narrow, but a small factor to the interocular space, which, when the soft parts are _in situ_, appears disproportionately wide as compared with the same area in other races. In Mongols, Eskimos, and Australians the nasals very ordinarily form a more or less elevated arch, and they are not by any means so narrow as they are almost always in the Bushman race. In this latter these bones not rarely lose not only their characteristic arch-shape but also their individuality, and anchylose with each other mesially. It is, however, right to add that nasals of the Bushman type are not rarely, though by no means invariably, to be found in Negro and Caffre crania.

As regards the yellow hue of the skin, the likeness to the Mongolian races proper is perhaps less disputable, but with the skin we are bound to consider the hair, the peculiarities of which, as seen in the Bushman, are as different from those seen in the Mongolian variety of mankind as it is possible for two varieties of human hair from the same area to be. “The thinnest and flattest hair is that of the Bosjesmans, Papuans, and Negroes; the most cylindrical being that of Polynesians, Malays, Siamese, Japanese, and Americans. Europeans are between the two.” Such are the microscopic characters of the hair in the several great divisions of our species, according to Topinard (“Anthropology;” translated in _Library of Contemporary Science_ by Dr. Bartley), and it is needless to contrast the spirally contorted and tufted dark hair of the Hottentot or Bushman with the coarse wire-drawn straight black hair of the Mongolian or Eskimo. It is curious, however, if indeed not otherwise significant, that the Central African “Bushmen,” if so we may call them, of Ashango, occasionally bury their dead in a temporarily diverted stream-course, much as was done in the case of Attila, and, according to Mr. Wood, _l.c._, “in various parts of the world from the earliest known time.”

The Bushman race, as is well known, have strong proclivities in the direction of musical performances. The same, however, may be said of other priscan races as well as of them and the Mongolian and Kalmuck tribes,[75] and we cannot therefore lay any weight upon this point of similarity.

The custom, however explained, which the Khoi-Khoin races have of cutting off one or more joints of the little and ring fingers might, but with no great amount of probability, be taken to point to the existence of an affinity to races as far dislocated in space as the inhabitants of certain islands in Oceania, both Papuan and Malay. The Papuans, according to Sir John Lubbock (_Prehistoric Times_, 1869, p. 445), cut off the end both of the little toe and the little finger as a sign of mourning. The Friendly Islanders (Cook’s _Voyages_, vol. i. 222; Williams’s _Missionary Enterprise_, 547, 548) cut off one or two joints of their little fingers, and the inhabitants of Tracy Island, which was colonized from Samoa, do the like, according to the Rev. S. J. Whitwell (Petermann’s _Mittheilungen_ for 1871, p. 203). One form of the solemnization of matrimony amongst the Australians consists in the biting off by a woman of a bit of the little finger of the left hand. I do not know that the fact, deposed to by F. Müller in his contribution to the _Memoirs on the Voyage of the Novara_, p. 6, to the effect that Caffre women, when a child is sick, or when they themselves become widows, have a piece of their little fingers cut off, need be taken as indicating anything more than the exceeding contagiousness of bad and foolish customs, of which the old anthropologist and zoologist Zimmermann (_cit._ “Address to Biological Section of British Association Meeting at Liverpool,” see _Report_ for year 1871) spoke so caustically. Several instances of such adoption and borrowing, on the part of the Abantu tribes, from the conquered and persecuted Khoi-Khoin, might be adduced, and might be paralleled, at some distance, by the fact embodied in the two lines of Horace--

“Græcia captu ferum victorem cepit, et artes Intulit agresti Latio.”

MEASUREMENTS OF SIX BUSHMAN CRANIA, AS GIVEN BY PROFESSOR FLOWER, F.R.S., IN CATALOGUE OF SPECIMENS ILLUSTRATING OSTEOLOGY AND DENTITION, ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND, 1879, p. 246.