Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/148

 110 SOUTH AND EAST AFBICA. men ; yet they are the tallest of all the nations classed as Hottentots. At the same time the southern Bushmen, some wretched representatives of whom are still met south of the Orange River, are certainly one of the smallest people in the whole world. The greatest mean height, as deduced from six measurements taken by Fritsch, is slightly over 4 feet 9 inches ; while Burchell and Lichstenstein found the average scarcely more than 4 feet 1 inch. Thus, even accepting the more favourable results, these Sans would still be from 2 to 3 inches shorter than the Lapps. Their yellowish complexion, especially in the southern regions farthest removed from the equator, has been compared to that of Europeans suffering from jaundice, or of Mongolians in a healthy state.* In many other respects the Bushmen resemble these Asiatics of the Central plateaux. Like them they are distinguished by the small size of their bright eyes, by the breadth and prominence of their cheekbones, the form of mouth and chin, the whiteness and regularity of their teeth, the extreme delicacy of their joints. The depression between the frontal bone and root of the nose is always broad and deep, so that the general profile presents rather a concave than a convex contour. The forehead, instead of retreating as with the Mongolians, bulges out ; while the skull, covered with little tufts like " grains of pepper," is very long or narrow, with index Xo. 7303. In this respect the Bushman resembles the true JVegro, whose head is also long, and differs from the Mongolian and the Akka, whose heads are normally round. The cranial capacity is relatively low, although the general expression is far from indicating any lack of intelligence. On the contrary, the physiognomy implies a remarkable degree of sagacity ; and assuredly the Sans need to be constantly on the alert in order to contend successfully with the hardships, the elements, and the enemies by which they are beset in their inhospitable environment. One of the distinctive characters of the southern Bushmen, conspicuous even in the young, is the multiplicity of wrinkles covering the whole person. The skin of the face and of the body, fitting too loosely, as it were, to their lean figures, becomes marked with a thousand furrows, but also rapidly distends under the influence of a more generous diet than falls normally to their lot. Like the Hottentots, the Bushmen, and especially the women, also show a decided tendency, even from their tender years, towards steatopygia. The Bushman speech does not form an independent linguistic group, as has been supposed, but is connected with that of the Hottentots. Both evidently ,belong to a common stock, although differing greatly in their structure and syntax. The nominal roots are identical, and both express all relational ideas by means of agglutinated suffixes. The Bushman dictionary left unfinished by Bleek was to contain no less than eleven thousand words. This great wealth of diction, taken in connection with the common origin of the San and Hottentot languages, seems to confirm the view held by many anthropologists, that the
 * Leon Mechnikov, Manuscript Notes ; Adolph Bastian, Ethuologische Forschungen,