In Darkest Africa, Vol. 2; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of EquatoriaStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
In Darkest Africa, Vol. 2; or, The Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Emin Pasha, 1840-1892
The Wahuma are the exact opposite of the dwarfs. The latter are
undersized nomads, adapted by their habits to forest life; the former
are tall, finely-formed men, with almost European features, adapted from
immemorial custom and second nature to life in pastoral lands only.
Reverse their localities, and they pine and die. Take the Pigmies out of
their arboreal recesses and perpetual twilight, and from their vegetable
diet, and plant them on a grass-land open to the winds and the sunshine,
feed them on beef and grain, and milk as you may, and they shrink with
the cold and exposure, refuse their meat, and droop to death. On the
other hand, deport the Wahuma into the woods, and supply them with the
finest vegetables, and always with plenty of food, and the result is,
that they get depressed, their fine brown-black colour changes into
ashen gray, the proud haughty carriage is lost, they contract an aspect
of misery, and die in despair and weariness. Yet these two opposites of
humanity are called Bantu, or men, a term which is perfectly
meaningless, and yet as old as the story of the Creation. In North
America we see to-day Esquimaux, English, Irish, German, French and
Spanish Americans, and Indians, and, after the scientific manner, we
should call them Bantu. Interest in the various human families is not
roused by comprehending them under such unphilosophical terms.
The Wahuma are true descendants of the Semitic tribes, or communities,
which emigrated from Asia across the Red Sea and settled on the coast,
and in the uplands of Abyssinia, once known as Ethiopia. From this great
centre more than a third of the inhabitants of Inner Africa have had
their origin. As they pressed southward and conquered the negro tribes,
miscegenation produced a mixture of races; the Semitic became tainted
with negro blood, the half-caste tribes inter-married again with the
primitive race, and became still more degraded in feature and form, and
in the course of ages lost almost all traces of their extraction from
the Asiatic peoples. If a traveller only bears this fact in mind, and
commences his researches from the Cape of Good Hope, he will be able
easily, as he marches northward, to separate the less adulterated
tribes from those who are so nearly allied to the true negro type as to
bear classification as negroid. The kinky, woolly hair is common to all;
but even in this there are shades of difference from that which is
coarse almost as horse-hair, to that which rivals silken floss for
fineness. The study of the hair may, however, be left; the great and
engrossing study being the Caucasian faces under the negro hair. From
among the Kaffirs, Zulus, Matabeles, Basutos, Bechuanas, or any other of
the fierce South African tribes, select an ordinary specimen of those
splendidly-formed tribes so ruthlessly denominated as negroes, and plant
him near a West African, or Congoese, or Gabonese type, and place a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account