The HOTTENTOT. This race inhabits the south of Africa, and
parts extending thence into the interior; they are of a yellowish-brown
complexion, small in stature, with hair consisting of small black
knobs of a crisp sort of wool, separated from each other in such a way
that the skin of the head may be distinctly seen between them. They
are strictly nomadic, scarcely ever remaining in any fixed spot, but
following the animals they hunt and kill for food, upon the flesh of
which, with a few roots, they live.
Dr. Livingstone denies that they are very small in stature; speaking of
the Bushmen, a tribe of the Hottentot family, he says:--"They are the
only real nomads in the country, they never cultivate the soil, nor
rear any domestic animals, save wretched dogs; they are so intimately
acquainted with the habits of the game, that they follow them in their
migrations from place to place, and prey upon them, and thus prove as
complete a check upon their inordinate increase as the other carnivora.
The chief subsistence of the Bushmen is the flesh of game, but that is
eked out by what the women collect of roots, beans, or fruits of the
desert.
[Illustration: HOTTENTOT FEMALE.]
[Illustration: _MALAY._]
The MALAY family are a coast-dwelling people, delighting in
the water, and never found very far removed from it; they inhabit the
southernmost coast of China, from Siam southwards, and all the adjacent
islands. They are of a dark rich brown colour, with straight, coarse,
black hair and scanty beard, which in some is quite wanting. Some of
the members of this family are above the usual standard of height, such
as the Polynesians and Tahitians. The moral character of the Malays,
generally speaking, is of an inferior order. They are a race differing
much, in some respects, from the Negro and Red Indian, being of
peculiarly active temperaments; they exhibit considerable intellectual
capacity, and are an ingenious people. It is extremely probable, from
the fact of their being found in islands surrounded by others in the
hands of the Ethiopic race, that they have pushed out the less active
variety, and, in short, annihilated them; and it is likely that they
will in turn suffer extinction at the hands of a superior variety, or a
variety rendered superior by civilisation.
The PAPUAN race inhabit the Feejee Islands and the coasts of
New Guinea; they are almost black, with a rough skin and thick woolly
hair, which grows much longer than in the Negro, and which they wear
curled up so as to form a resisting mass, and no bad protection against
the blow from a club (their national weapon). Their height is above the
average of Europeans. Fish and yams are their chief food.
[Illustration: PAPUAN.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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