CHAPTER IV.
THE SOMAL, THEIR ORIGIN AND PECULIARITIES.
Before leaving Zayla, I must not neglect a short description of its inhabitants, and the remarkable Somal races around it.[1]
Eastern Africa, like Arabia, presents a population composed of three markedly distinct races.
1. The Aborigines, such as the Negroes, the Bushmen, Hottentots, and other races, having such physiological peculiarities as the steatopyge, the tablier, and other developments described, in 1815, by the great Cuvier.
2. The almost pure Caucasian of the northern regions, west of Egypt: their immigration comes within the range of comparatively modern history.
3. The half-castes in Eastern Africa are represented principally by the Abyssinians, Gallas, (Hamites), Somal Sawahili, and Kafirs. The first-named people derive their descent from Menelek, son of Solomon by the Queen of Sheba: it is evident from their features and figures—too well known to require description—that they are descended from Semitic as well as Negrotic (Nigro-Hamitic) progenitors.[2]
