Forced downwards by the stronger tribes of the Kaffres, with their periphery overlaid, the Hottentots probably represent a population whose original area was extended much more towards the north—possibly as far as the central range of mountains. Nay, more—fragments of the stock may still, in central Africa, interrupt the Kaffre area, and form future discoveries in ethnology.
This possible northward extension of the Hottentot area has a bearing upon the questions connected with the population of Madagascar.
Overlaying of the periphery of an ethnological area.—Let two divisions of a certain class pass into each other by imperceptible degrees, and let one of the central portions of either class spread itself at the expense of the parts belonging to its circumference.
The effect which follows is, that those portions of this area, which represent the phænomena of transition, are overlaid, or overlapped; and that instead of two populations coming into contact by imperceptible degrees, they meet as separate classes, with as broad a line of demarcation between their respective representatives at the circumferences (peripheries) of their respective areas, as there was between their central or typical portions.
North-western America illustrates this. The more southern Algonkins have overlaid both the Algonkins of their own section, which approached the Eskimo, and the Eskimo of the opposite section, which approached the Algonkin. Hence the two populations meet as widely-separated, and broadly distinguished varieties of mankind.
FOOTNOTES:
[177] Prichard, vol. ii. p. 278.
[179] Aliquando, apud hanc nationem, nympharum protuberantia enormis—minime vero apud onmes—occurrit.
[180] Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. i. No. 4.