These tribes of dwarfs, now extended throughout the equatorial forests and over the South African deserts, were probably once far more widespread, inhabiting much of the continent and reaching as far as Madagascar, where a branch of them, known as Kinios or Quinias, are thought still to exist. They extended north to the Mediterranean, and have left their representatives in Morocco in a tribe of dwarfs, about four feet high, who differ widely in appearance from all other people of that country. As to their origin, there is a diversity of opinion. Some anthropologists look upon them as a primeval race, distinct from the negroes, who came among them later. Professor Virchow, on the contrary, is of the opinion that their only important difference from the negroes is that of size, and regards them as the remains of a primitive population from whom the negroes have descended.
In a preceding section a statement was made as to what was the probable general appearance of the man-ape. It was based upon the physical aspect of the Pygmies, whom we hold to form the immediate derivative of man's ape ancestor, and to have made no radical change in personal appearance, if we may judge from the various ape-like characteristics which they still present. Mentally they have made a very considerable advance, and have reached the stage of men of low intellectual powers; but while their brains have been growing their bodies have not greatly changed, and the marks of their origin are thick upon them. There has probably been little change in size, the diminutive stature and small bodily dimensions being in accord with their incessant activity, while the difficulties of traversing the thick growth of the tropical forest may have helped to keep them small. As it is, they are of about half the size of civilized man, the weight of a full grown adult male being probably not over ninety pounds.
Taking the Pygmies as a whole, it may be said that, though many of the Akkas are disproportionate in shape and tottering in gait, on the whole these people are well made, their protuberant paunch being probably a result of their habits of eating. Captain Guy Burrows says that a Pygmy will eat twice as much as would suffice a full-grown man, and that one of them will devour a whole stalk of bananas at a meal, with other food. Some tribes are described as physically and mentally degenerate, and prognathism is in many cases strongly declared, the lower part of the face having an ape-like contour, and the protruding chin, that feature peculiar to man, being very deficient. In their great abdominal development the adult Akkas resemble the children of Arabs and negroes. This, therefore, seems the retention of a primitive feature which has become a passing characteristic in the more advanced types of mankind.