Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/467

Rh It has merely expanded along the line of least resistance. The Alpine type in Auvergne, increasing in numbers faster than the meager means of support offered by Nature, has by force of numbers pushed its way irresistibly out across Aquitaine, crowding its former possessors to one side. Certainly this is true in the Pyrenees, for here at the base of the mountains the population changes suddenly, as we shall see in our next paper on the Basques. On the other side at the north lies, as we have just seen, a second primitive population, less changed from the prehistoric type than any other in Europe. This Cro-Magnon race has been preserved apparently by the dike of the Limousin hills with their miserable population; for these hills have cut across the Paris-Bordeaux axis of fertility and have stopped the Teutonic race at the city of Limoges from expanding farther in this direction—that is to say, economic attraction having come to an end, immigration ceased with it. The intrusive Teutonic race has therefore been debarred from this main avenue of approach by land into Aquitaine. The competition has been narrowed down to the Alpine and Cro-Magnon types alone. Hence the former, overflowing its source in Auvergne, has spread in a generally southwestern direction with slight opposition. It could not extend itself to the southeast, for the Mediterranean type was strongly intrenched along the sea coast, and was in fact pushing its way over the low pass into Aquitaine from that direction. The case is not dissimilar to that of Burgundy, for in both instances a bridge of Alpine broad-headedness cuts straight across a river valley open to a narrow-headed invasion at both ends. It is not improbable that in both this bridge is a last remnant of broad-headedness which would have covered the whole valley had it not been invaded from both sides by other competitors.

Enough has been said to show the complexity of the racial relations hereabouts. We have identified the oldest living race in this part of the world. The most primitive language in Europe—the Basque—is spoken near by. It will form the subject of the next paper.

his journeyings in the Zambesi country, Africa, Captain A. St. H. Gibbons found an ancient and interesting custom prevailing at Nalolo of investing the eldest surviving sister of the ruling king with the prerogatives of a queen, without whose advice and sanction her brother can not give effect to any important measure in the government of the state. In minor local matters she in her own district reigns supreme, holds the power of life and death over her subjects, and is at liberty to wed or depose a husband at will. The present Makwai, or queen, from whom six husbands have been removed in ways not natural, is described by the author as having a mixed character, being unscrupulous and very polite.