Various students of the negro peoples have divided them into families; but the divisions vary, and no fixed terminology has become so dominant as to command common consent. For our purpose, the four Families hereafter described comprise the African Negroes. A minute study of these families will reveal many tribal subdivisions, each with distinguishing traits—physical, mental and moral—developed by environment, and yet plainly traceable to common family origins. Such a minute study is not our purpose, and we shall limit our view to the four Families in whose development we are especially interested. =I. The Negrito Family.= In this Family are three distinct though kindred tribes—the Pygmies, the Bushmen, and the Hottentots—supposed to be the original inhabitants of Africa. As these tribes are only remotely represented in America, they may be dismissed with short notice. They are all of small stature, ranging in height from four to five feet, and are early mentioned by the Greek and Roman historians, whose stories of the dwarf Pygmies were treated as traveller’s tales until the discoveries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries proved the so-called fables of Homer, Aristotle, and Pliny to be true. From the nomadic, forest-dwelling Pygmies of central Africa, with their low mental and social development, there is a distinct advance in their nearest kinsmen, the Bushmen of the desert regions scattered throughout this same area. Among them, music is a distinct form of expression, and they exhibit a degree of artistic ability in the depicting of animal figures and even of scenes from their marauding life. More developed still, are the Hottentots of the South. In mental and moral character, as well as in mechanical ingenuity, they surpass their kinsmen. Language is still meager in power of expression, but the Hottentot _kraal_ or village community represents a much higher stage of social life than is found among the Pygmies or the Bushmen. Religiously, too, the Hottentot is on a higher plane than the related tribes. The effect of European settlement in the land of the Bushmen and Hottentots has been disastrous to these wild people. Dr. Bryce says, “Along the south bank of the Orange River and to the north of it, small tribes, substantially identical with the Hottentots, still wander over the arid wilderness. But in the settled parts of the colony, the Hottentot, of whom we used to hear so much, and, at one time, feared so much, has vanished more completely than has the Red Indian from the Atlantic States of America.” The Pygmies are still remote from the white man’s influence. Is it this alone that saves them from a like fate?