Along with the Jews we must put another people, also dispersed over nearly the whole earth, and of Asiatic origin, probably from India, to judge by the affinities of its language with the Hindu dialects—the Gypsies. They are found in India (Banjars, Nats, etc.), Persia and Russian Turkestan (Luli, Mazang, Kara-Luli, etc.), in Asia Minor (where are also found their congeners, the Yuruks); then in Syria (Chingane), in Egypt (Phagari, Nuri, etc.), and all over Europe, with the exception, it is said, of Sweden and Norway; they are found in considerable numbers in Rumania (200,000), Turkey, Hungary, and the south-west of Russia. In all they number nearly a million. The pure so-called “Black Gypsies” are of the Indo-Afghan race (stature 1 m. 72, ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 76.8), but very often they have intermingled with the populations in the midst of which they dwell.[479]
CHAPTER XI.
RACES AND PEOPLES OF AFRICA.
Ancient Inhabitants of Africa—Succession of races on the “dark continent”—PRESENT INHABITANTS OF AFRICA—I. Arabo-Berber or Semito-Hamite Group: Populations of Mediterranean Africa and Egypt—II. Ethiopian or Kushito-Hamite Group: Bejas, Gallas, Abyssinians, etc.—III. Fulah-Zandeh Group: The Zandeh, Masai, Niam-Niam populations of the Ubangi-Shari, etc., Fulbé or Fulahs—IV. Nigritian Group: Nilotic Negroes or Negroes of eastern Sudan—Negroes of central Sudan—Negroes of western Sudan and the Senegal—Negroes of the coast or Guinean Negroes, Kru, Agni, Tshi, Vei, Yoruba, etc.—V. Negrillo Group: Differences of the Pygmies and the Bushmen—VI. Bantu Group: Western Bantus of French, German, Portuguese, and Belgian equatorial Africa—Eastern Bantus of German, English, and Portuguese equatorial Africa—Southern Bantus: Zulus, etc.—VII. Hottentot-Bushman Group: The Namans and the Sans—VIII. Populations of Madagascar: Hovas, Malagasi, Sakalavas.
THE term “Black Continent” is often applied to Africa, but it must not therefore be supposed that it is peopled solely by Negroes. Without taking into account the white Arabo-Berbers and the yellow Bushmen-Hottentots, which have long been known, it may now be shown, after a half-century of discovery, that the population of Africa presents a very much greater variety of types and races than was formerly imagined.
ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF AFRICA.
We are only just beginning to know something about prehistoric Africa. Egypt, that classic land of the oldest historic monuments of the earth, has yielded in late years, thanks to the excavations of Flinders Petrie, D’Amelineau, and above all, of De Morgan, a large quantity of wrought stone objects, similar in character to those of Europe, and if certain objections may still be raised in regard to the palæolithic period of Egypt, which is not dated by a fauna, we can scarcely deny the existence of the neolithic period in this country, the period which preceded or was contemporaneous with the earliest dynasties of which monuments have yet been discovered.[480]
Hatchets, knives, and scrapers of very rude palæolithic and neolithic types have been discovered in Cape Colony (W. Gooch, J. Sanderson); flint arrow-heads and implements of the Chellean type in the country of the Somalis, in the Congo Free State;[481] ironstone arrow-heads in the country of the Monbuttus (Emin Pacha). Numerous stone implements and weapons of various palæolithic types, much finer than the preceding, as well as neolithic hatchets, have been found in Algeria (at Tlemcen), in South Algeria (at El-Golea, etc.), and as far as Timbuctoo (Weisgerber, Lenz, Collignon, etc.). Lastly, Tunis presents a progressive series of palæolithic implements absolutely similar to those of Europe in several stations (at Gafsa and, in a general way, west from the Gulf of Gabes).[482] But all these finds are very isolated and too far removed one from another to enable us to infer from them the existence of one and the same primitive industry over the whole continent.[483] Numerous facts on the contrary, particularly the absence of stone implements among the most primitive of the existing tribes of Africa (with the exception of the perforated round stone with which the digging-stick is weighted, as well as the stone pestles met with among some Negro tribes), and the rarity of superstitions associated with stone implements, lead us to suppose that the stone age only existed on the dark continent in a sporadic state and in virtue of local and isolated civilisations. Further, the absence of bronze implements, outside of Egypt, leads us to suppose that the majority of the peoples of Africa, with the exception of the inhabitants of Egypt and the Mediterranean coast, passed from the age of bone and wood to that of iron almost without transition.