In truth, this race of dwarfs may be the primitive stock from which the Mongolians branched off on the one hand, and the Negroes on the other, since they are in some measure intermediate between the two. Latham says of the Rajmalis mountaineers, "Some say their physiognomy is Mongolian, others that it is African." Quatrefages is strongly of the opinion that the negro is of Indian origin, and reached Africa through migration. He bases his opinion on the negroid characters of existing tribes in India, Persia, and elsewhere in Asia, and on the similar characters of the aboriginal Polynesians. As regards the Pygmies, they probably spread over the whole of this section of the earth at a period of remote antiquity, and very long ago developed the racial differences which appear to exist between separate tribes. Distinctions of this kind can be seen in the East, and a marked one is pointed out by Stanley between the Wambutti and the Akka, as already stated. Wherever found the Pygmies are hunters, usually making the deep forest their home, and are masters through their agility, cunning, and deadly weapons of the whole world of lower animals. Physically they are probably not far removed from the man-ape, their remote ancestor, for they retain various ape-like characters, as in aspect of face, shape of body, occasional hairiness, diminutive size, shortness of legs, imperfect development of the calf, occasional waddling gait in walking, and the other particulars above pointed out. There are certainly abundant reasons for believing them to be, as we have suggested, the final result of the first great conflict in the evolution of man, that with the lower animals. This assured mastery once gained, the occasion for further development of this people ceased while they remained in the forest habitat which they had inherited from their ape ancestors. Here the problem of food getting was fully solved and there was nothing to instigate any new step in evolution. The period of conflict ended, a period of rest supervened, and, so far as the Pygmies are concerned, this period still continues. Though later races, their probable descendants, have left the forest and set up new stages of development through new conflicts with adverse conditions, the Pygmies remain in their resting state, and, if left to themselves, might continue in this state for ages in the future as they have done for ages in the past. As the case now stands, however, annihilation threatens some of them, while educative and other influences from without may bring to an end the physical and mental isolation of the others.