Page:Evolution of Life (Henry Cadwalader Chapman, 1873).djvu/222

168 herd together, having no idea of marriage or family life. As quoted by Buchner, Krapf, the missionary, in speaking of one of the Abyssinian tribes, says, "The Dokos are human pygmies; they are not more than four feet high; their skin is of an olive-brown. Wanderers in the woods, they live like animals, without habitations, without sacred trees, etc. They go naked, nourishing themselves by roots, fruits, mice, serpents, ants, honey; they climb trees like monkeys. Without chief, without law, without arms, without marriage, they have no family, and mate by chance like animals; they also multiply rapidly. The mother, after a very short lactation, abandons her child to itself. They neither hunt, nor cultivate, nor sow, and they never have known the use of fire. They have thick lips, a flattened nose, little eyes, long hair, hands and feet with great nails, with which they dig the soil." Lallemand, in speaking of the Botocudos, a tribe of Brazil, says, "I am sadly convinced that there are monkeys with two hands." The Negritoes, a race inhabiting the Philippine Islands, are regarded by those who live in Manilla as monkeys. According to Buchner, "the toes of these savages, who live partly in grottoes, partly on trees, are very mobile, and more separated than ours, especially the great toe. They use them in maintaining themselves on branches and cords as with fingers." As we would naturally expect, the unanimous testimony of those who have lived among these races is that all attempts at civilizing such beasts have utterly failed. As these statements may appear somewhat exaggerated to those who are not familiar with the results of ethnological research, we content ourselves with referring such to the works of Lyell, Lubbock, Rolle, Haeckel, and Buchner, on Man. Buchner quotes no less than twenty-five well-known writers, including missionaries, naturalists, philologists, travelers, as entirely confirming his statements respecting the low mental state of