The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-05-18
sTANLEY'S PIGMIES.

Stanley is quite right in saying that his
accounts of the pigmies. whose country he
traversed in his march from the Congo to
the source of the Nile, will be the most in
terestlng portion of his new book, In
Darkest Africa" That there was a race Of
DIV arts in Equatorial Africa was asserted
by Herodotus, but conservative anthro-
biologists were long accustomed to smile at
his credulity, and to class his dwalfs with
the men whose heads do grow beneath
their shoulders. Bleek, in his anthro-
pology, speaks of tribes among the Bantus-
under which head he comprises all native
Africans from Caffraria to the Great Lakes
which fell far below the ordinary stand
ard of 20 inches for adult males; and
Schweinfurth, while giving the average
stature of the negroes Of the Nile region as
Il inches, mentions certain eastern tribes as
only averaging 81 to 50 inches. Stanley's
pigmies we're less than IS inches. and they
differed from the other natives Of the
Equatorial region in that they were brown
and not black. This again is no new dis
cOVery. The Philippians, who inhabited
Meroe, and were constantly at war with
the Egyptians in the times of the shepherd
kings, had olive compilations, not much
darker than those of the Spanish or italian
pchSdhb VI luo PRESENT uAy tle pTllEa
donna who plays the title role in the opera
of "LAfricaine" never blackens her face.
Still, Stanley's reports will give the con-
sistency of fact to that which has been
largely theory. We are now bound to
ad NIT that there is, and that there prob
ably always has been since the glacial era,
a race Of people in Equatorial Africa who
rarely exceeded feet in height. The fact is
sting in irc hearing n ba of
climate and physical geog raphy on the
stature of man. Nobody adheres to the
ancient faith thai there were formerly
giants in the world; the race of Anak be-
long to the class of myths prehistoric
man, so far as archaeology reveals, was
rather under than over the present average
stature OF the race. But it is well known
that human stature varies With locality,
and that the variation is sometimes large.
Stanley speaks OF his S0udanese soldiers as
standing feet inches, and the mean
height of the Patagonian Indians is given
as feet, while the Andaman Islanders
rarely reach feet, and SANKEY'S pigmies
only t. The effect of climate on stature
was curiously demonstrated by the measure
ments taken by recruiting officers during
the War of the Rebellion. 1t was shown
that in two OF three generations the de-
scendant OF the Europeans who settled in the
United States gained over l inch in height
and several pounds in weight over his an
cestors. 1t was demonstrated that the
native of the river valleys of the center of
the continent was, on an average, 2 inches
taller than the native of the Atlantic
Coast. 1t might have been added that the
latter was about as much taller than the
native of France or Germany. How these
results are achieved, and by what agency,
are matters of conjecture.
Stanley says that the intelligence of his
dwarfs was superior to that of the blacks
In Lis camp. This may prove an important
discovery. The more natural intelligence
race possesses, the more easily can it be
brought under the influences of civiliza-
ton, and for fighting purposes height and
physical strength are not of much moment.
The pigmies might serve as a nucleus for
the coming race of civilized men in Equa-
torial Africa. The japanese are the
smallest race in Asia, but they are the most
intelligent and the most self-reliant; in
time they bid lair to become the dominant
power.