tially
so. Negroes and Papuans are strongly dolichocephalic. In this respect
the Pygmy peoples agree more closely with the short-headed Mongolian or
yellow races than with the long-headed negro or black races, though in
general features they come near the latter.

In truth, this race of dwarfs may be the primitive stock from which the
Mongolians branched off on the one hand, and the Negroes on the other,
since they are in some measure intermediate between the two. Latham says
of the Rajmalis mountaineers, "Some say their physiognomy is Mongolian,
others that it is African." Quatrefages is strongly of the opinion that
the negro is of Indian origin, and reached Africa through migration. He
bases his opinion on the negroid characters of existing tribes in India,
Persia, and elsewhere in Asia, and on the similar characters of the
aboriginal Polynesians. As regards the Pygmies, they probably spread
over the whole of this section of the earth at a period of remote
antiquity, and very long ago developed the racial differences which
appear to exist between separate tribes. Distinctions of this kind can
be seen in the East, and a marked one is pointed out by Stanley between
the Wambutti and the Akka, as already stated.

Wherever found the Pygmies are hunters, usually making the deep forest
their home, and are masters through their agility, cunning, and deadly
weapons of the whole world of lower animals. Physically they are
probably not far removed from the man-ape, their remote ancestor, for
they retain various ape-like characters, as in aspect of face, shape of
body, occasional hairiness, diminutive size, shortness of legs,
imperfect development of the calf, occasional waddling gait in walking,
and the other particulars above pointed out. There are certainly
abundant reasons for believing them to be, as we have suggested, the
final result of the first great conflict in the evolution of man, that
with the lower animals.

This assured mastery once gained, the occasion for further development
of this people ceased while they remained in the forest habitat which
they had inherited from their ape ancestors. Here the problem of food
getting was fully solved and there was nothing to instigate any new step
in evolution. The period of conflict ended, a period of rest supervened,
and, so far as the Pygmies are concerned, this period still continues.
Though later races, their probable descendants, have left the forest
and set up new st