Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/35

Rh but they might have been exterminated entirely, or partly absorbed and partly exterminated by an invasion of a stronger race. This has ever been the law: progress in knowledge and skill and become invincible, or perish. And they were the least progressive of all mankind. Ages later this was the fate of their kinsmen in South Africa, who continued to exist so long solely because of their perfect seclusion.

In South-Eastern Asia there are people living to-day, such as some of the inhabitants of the Philippine islands, the Andamanese, and the Semang in the Malay peninsula, who are so like the Bushmen that it is almost certain they are of the same stock. The type must have been fixed in their common primeval home in some far remote time, and the changes in each that have since taken place have been so small that the close relationship may still be seen. Mentally especially this is the case. Their power of thought on subjects of any nature outside of their ordinary occupations is not greater than that of a European child six or seven years of age, and they have all the credulity of such a child. There are no means of ascertaining whether this was the case with the section of the race in Europe, but the probability is very strong that it was.

The points of resemblance between the Bushmen and the Semang are so numerous that they cannot be accidental. The average height of Semang men is 1491 millimetres, of Bushmen of South Africa 1444 millimetres, and of pygmies of Central Africa 1400 to 1450 millimetres. The average horizontal cephalic index of the Semang is 78.9 (of their women 81.1), but this index is variable. This hardly differs from that of Bushmen. The cranial capacity of the Semang is 1348 cubic centimetres, which is greater than that of Bushmen, but still very low. The noses of the Semang are remarkably broad and flat, and the root is depressed; the chin is feebly developed. The cheek bones are broad, the