which many of them seem to be losing. Bambongo, on the other hand, distinctly suggests Obongo, and may have originated the latter name (which, as the variant Babongo shows, seems to be Bantu)—the Kenkob adopting it from the district where they had sojourned. Or, again, it may be a tribal name, reported to Dr. Koelle's informant as that of a district.
Turning to southwestern Africa, we find that Major Serpa Pinto,[1] in 1878, met with a tribe called "Mucassequeres," living in the forests between the Cubango and Cuando, while the open country is occupied by the Ambuellas. These people have "eyes very small and out of the right line, cheek-bones very far apart and high, nose flat to the face, and nostrils disproportionately wide." Their hair is crisp and woolly, growing in separate patches, and thickest on the top of the head. Unlike the Obongo, they build no kind of shelter, but, like them, are skilled in the use of bows and arrows, and live on roots, honey, and game. In color they are "a dirty yellow, like the Hottentots, while the Ambuellas are black, though of a Caucasian type of feature."
Farther south, near the borders of the Kalahari Desert, Serpa Pinto found a tribe similar in most respects to the Mucassequeres, but deep black, and known by the name of Massaruas. These (who are less savage than the Mucassequeres) are probably a tribe of Bushmen, very much resembling, if not identical with, the M'Kabba, or N'Tchabba, brought by Signor Farini from the Kalahari Desert. These last were carefully examined by Prof. Virchow, and described by him in a paper read before the Berlin Anthropological Society, March 20, 1886.
We have now to notice the section of the Pygmy race with which Europeans have come most in contact—the Hottentots and Bushmen. The Hottentots (as they are now known to us, their real name for themselves being "Khoi-Khoi"[2]) represent probably the highest development of the race, and differ notably from its other members in being a pastoral people. When Van Riebeek landed at the Cape in 1652 they existed in great numbers, roaming the country with large herds of cattle. Kafir wars and Dutch "commandoes," with other causes, have so far thinned them out that few if any genuine "Cape Hottentots" now exist, their place being taken by the Griquas and other tribes of mixed race. Two cognate tribes, the Korannas[3] and Namaquas, still exist, but in diminished numbers.
- ↑ How I crossed Africa, vol. ii, pp. 320 sqq.
- ↑ Or Koi-Koib ("men of men"), according to Dr. Cust. The Kafirs call them "Lawi." "Hottentot" is merely a nickname given by the early Dutch settlers, who declared the natives spoke an unintelligible language, consisting only of sounds like hot and tot.
- ↑ Some ethnologists are inclined to look on the Koranna tribe as a cross between Hottentots and Bushmen.
