all the lemuroids. Among the carnivora, bears,
wolves, and foxes are wholly absent, and
several feline, viverrine, and canine forms are
peculiar, although the characteristic lion and leopard
are not restricted to Africa. The lesser
mammals are mainly the same as or allied to southern
Asiatic and Oriental forms. Resident birds
display similar unlikeness to Europe and Asia,
and suggestive resemblances to those of the
Australian and Neotropical regions. Thus, the
ostrich, so widespread and characteristic of
Africa, is unknown elsewhere, but its allies are
the extinct and modern ratite birds of the
Australasian archipelago and the rheas of Argentina.
Africa is rich in reptiles, but few are peculiar,
chiefly terrestrial venomous snakes and the
chæmasaurid lizards; and the affinities of this
group, as of the fishes, are Oriental, though
some of the fishes are remarkably related to
ancient American families. Similar remarks
apply to the invertebrates, where many genera
even are the same as those of either Australia,
the Malayan region, or America. For particulars
as to the various faunal sub-regions,
Madagascaran, West-coast, etc., see
Distribution of Animals.
Population. Recent authorities roughly estimate the population of Africa at about 175,000,000, or fifteen to the square mile, a density slight when compared with that of Europe, but much greater than that of the American continent. According to the nature of the soil and of the climate, the population is distributed very unevenly over the surface, being very dense in the Nile delta and massed somewhat densely in the upper Nile valley, and generally throughout the Sudan, less thickly over the southern plateau, and very thinly in the outlying regions of Morocco and Tripoli; while large tracts, especially in the western Sahara and in the Libyan and Kalahari wastes, are absolutely uninhabited. Of the inhabitants of Africa, only a small portion are recent immigrants from Europe, settled chiefly in the extreme north (Algeria) and in the extreme south (Cape Colony, Natal, and the Boer territories).
Ethnology. The yellow, the brown, and the red varieties of the human genus have no representatives in Africa, with the exception of some of the Polynesian tribes in Madagascar and the intrusions of eastern Asiatics in recent times. The 175,000,000 inhabitants of the continent represent the white and the black varieties of man, or mixtures of these. Northern and northeastern Africa have been occupied in historic times by white races, while equatorial and southern Africa were the home of black races; but the white Africans have from remote antiquity forced themselves into the black man's territory, and negro blood has mixed with that of Hamite and Semite across the Sahara; hence, especially on the border line, the ethnic stocks are intermingled.
Various schemes of classification have been proposed for the people of Africa, the latest of which are by Deniker and Keane.
Deniker's scheme (Races of Man; an Outline of Anthropology and Ethnology, London, 1900) is as follows:
I. Arabo-Berbers, or Semito-Hamites — (1) Jjerba subrace; (2) Elles type; (3) Dolichocephalic Berber subrace; (4) Jerid or Oasis type.
II. Ethiopians, or Kushito-Hamites, sometimes called Nuba, or Nubians.
III. Fulah-Zandeh group. Mixture of Ethiopians and Nigritians or Sudanese Negroes.
IV. Nigritians, (1) eastern Sudan, or Nilotic Negroes; (2) Nigritians of central Sudan; (3) Nigritians of western Sudan and Senegal—Haussas, Mandes or Mandingans, Toucouleurs or Torodos, Yolofs of Senegal; (4) Littoral Nigritians or Guineans—Krus, Agnis, Tshis, Ewes; (5) Yorubas.
V. Negrillos.
VI. Bantus. In Central and Southern Africa; divided into Western, Eastern, and Southern Bantus.
VII. Bushmen-Hottentots.
VIII. Hovas, Malagasies, and Sakalavas of Madagascar.
Keane's analysis of African peoples is given in his Ethnology and in Stanford's Africa (see bibliography at end of article). In the latter the classification is by regions, as follows:
I. Atlas Region. Stone Age men; peoples akin to Iberians and Silurians, artificers of the monolithic monuments; Berber Hamites; Phœnician Semites; Romans; Teutonic Vandals; Semitic Arabs; Negroes; Jews and modern intrusions; and Pygmies in the Atlas Mountains.
II. Tripolitana. Berbers or Libyans in many communities; Arabs; Negroes, chiefly slaves. The Phœnicians of Herodotus are replaced by Turks, Jews, Maltese, Italians, etc.
III. Sahara. Arabs, pure and mixed in many tribes and confederacies; Tuaregs, pure and mixed; Tibus; Negroes from the south.
IV. Sudan. Arabs; Hamites (Tibus, Tuaregs, and Fulahs); Negroes, beginning at the west coast: (1) Senegal to Sierra Leone—Wolofs, Sereres, Toucouleurs, Mandingans, Felups, etc.; (2) Sierra Leone—Temnis, Colonials, etc.; (3) Liberia; (4) Ivory Coast; (5) Gold Coast—Tshis, Ga; (6) Slave Coast—Ewes, Yorubas; (7) Upper and Middle Niger—Bambaras, Songhays, Haussas, etc.; (8) Benue Basin; (9) Lower Niger; (10) Niger Bend; (11) Chad Basin; (12) Wadai; (13) Darfur and Kordofan—Nubas and Nubian family of languages; (14) Upper Nile basin—Madis, Dinkas, Shilluks, Mundus, Bongas, etc.; (15) Welle basin—Mombuttus, Niam-Niams, Akka dwarfs, etc.
V. Italian and Northeast Africa. Somali Hamites; Galla Hamites; Afar (Danakil) Hamites; Abyssinian (Agau) Hamites; Semitized Hamites; Himyaritic (Abyssinian) Semites; Tigré, Amharas, Shoas; Arab (Nomad) Semites; Negroes and Bantus.
VI. Nubia and Egypt. (1) Nuba group—Nubas proper; Nilotic Nubas (Nubians, Barabra); (2) Beja group; (3) Egyptian group—Fellahin, Copts; (4) Arab group—(a) Settled; (b) Nomad and Semi-Nomad.
VII. The Kameruns. Bantu tribes, indigenous and intruders.
VIII. French Equatorial Africa. Bantu tribes, Mpongwe and others.
IX. Congo Free State. Bantu, chiefly. Names commencing with A-, Ba-, Ma-, Wa-, etc.
X. Portuguese West Africa. Angolan tribes chiefly. (1) Ba-Congo group; (2) A-Bundo group; (3) Aboriginal group.
XI. German Southwest Africa. (1) Ovampo groups; (2) Ova-Herero groups (Damara lowlands); (3) Nama groups (Namaqualand); full-blood Hottentots, Orlams (Hottentots from Cape Colony), Bastaards (Dutch Hottentot half-breeds from the Cape).
