Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/144

 108 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. gradually acquired a more restricted sense, being now mainly limited to the Bantus of Austral Africa, and more particularly to the various native tribes occupying the region between Cape Colony and Natal. These tribes are themselves closely related to those settled farther ncfrth in the Tugela basin and thence to the confines of the Portuguese possessions, who, since the beginning of the present century, have been better known by the collective name of Zulus. "West of the Zulu-Kafirs dwell the kindred Basutos (Ba-Suto), on the hilly plateau where rise the Orange and Caledon Rivers. Still farther west and beyond the Vaal stretches the territory of the Bechuanas (Be-Chuana), while the Ba-Kalahari nomads roam over the forests, steppes, and sandy wastes of the wil- derness from which they have taken their name. Other less extensive tribal groups, but which also require to be studied apart, inhabit the various states or provinces of the eastern territory. All these peoples difPer considerably in their customs, political systems, and degrees of culture ; but all are connected by their various idioms belonging to the common Bantu linguistic stock, so harmonious and in structure so strictly logical and consistent, that young and old alike speak it with unerring accuracy. The Bushmen. The western section of Cape Colony, as far east as Algoa Bay, belonged origi- nally to the San race, the few fragmentary surviving remnants of which are known to Europeans by the collective name of Bosjesmannen or Bushmer (in the Boer pnfois, Boesmans). But the word has acquired rather the meaning of inferior beings, half human in form, but of bestial nature; and it is noteworthy that in the Basuto language the word Bashiman has the sense of " uncircumcised, vile, or abject."* It is applied in a general way not only to the Bushmen proper, but also to all vagabond peoples, fugitives or marauders, whether of San, Hottentot, or even Kafir origin. The true Sans, who however have no common ethnical designation, nor even any consciousness of their racial unity, are a people of small and even dwarfish stature, but with a relatively light yellowish brown complexion, at least in the southern parts of their domain. They bear a general resemblance to all the other "pygmies " of Central Africa, such as the Akkas, Ba-Twas, A-Kwas, and A-Bongos, dispersed in scattered or broken tribes amongst the surrounding Negro and Bantu populations as far north as the Nile basin. According to many anthro- pologists, these fragmentary groups are the lineal descendants of the first inhabi- tants of the continent, who have been gradually exterminated, or driven to the forests, deserts, and mountain gorges by later intruders, the ancestors of the present dominant populations. It is, however, to be noted that these primitive dwarfish peoples, often collectively grouped as Negrillos, or Negritos, present far greater physical differences among themselves than is commonly supposed. Thus
 * Eugene CassUs, Le* Btusoutos.