NEGRELLI. ALOYS vox, 1799-1858; b. in the Tyrol; constructed the first Swiss railroad, from the German border to Zurich, also the first Austrian railroad, completed 1841; the Austrian Northern railroad secured him as chief inspector, which position he held till 1849, when he was appointed director of public works. In 1855 he assumed full charge of all Austrian railroads, from which position he was called, two years later, by the viceroy of Egypt, to superintend the cutting of the Suez canal, at which work he spent the last year of his life. ' or NEGRILLOS (Spanish, diminutive of negroes), is the name given by the Spaniards to certain negro-like tribes inhabiting the interior of some of the Philip pine islands, and differing essentially both in features and manners from the Malay inhabitants of the Eastern archipelago. They bear a very strong resemblance to the negroes of Guinea, but are much smaller in size, averaging in height not more than 4 ft. 8 in.. whence their appellation of Negritos, or little negroes. They are also called by the Spaniards iVergdeqs?clef.Xonte, from tbeir_iithabiting, the mountainous districts for the most part; andxone.'of the islands where they are most numerous bears the name Or" Mt do los Ni•grog. These Negritos are also known by the names Acta, Aigta, Ite, Inapta, and Igolote, or lgorote. They are described as a short,. small, but well-made and active people, the lower part of the face projecting like that of the African negroes, the hair either woolly or frizzled, and the complexion exceedingly clerk, if not quite so black as that of the negroes. The Spaniards describe them as less black and less ugly than the negroes—Nenos negros y MOWS fees. All writers concur in speaking of them as sunk in the lowest depths of savagedont wandering in the woods and mountains, without any fixed dwellings, and with only a strip of bark to cover their nakedness. Their only weapons are the bow and arrow; and they live upon roots, wild fruits, and any sort of animals that they can surprise in their haunts or conquer in the chase. By the Malays they are despised and hated; and the buffalo-hunters in the woods, when they meet with them, do Dot scruple to shoot them down like wild beasts or game. " It has not come to my knowledge," says a Spanish writer, " that n family of these negroes ever took up their abode in a village. If the Mohammedan inhabitants make slaves of them, they Nvill rather submit to be beaten to death than undergo any bodily fatigue; and it is impossible, either by force or persuasion, to bring them to labor." The same writer, an ecclesiastic, speaks of them as gentle and inoffensive in their manners, whenever he himself came in contact with them; and although informed that some of them were cannibals, he was not inclined to believe the report. Dr. Carl Scherzer, the historian of the circumnavigation of the Novara, when at Manilla, had an opportunity of seeing a Negrita girl, whom he tints describes: " This was a girl of about 12 or 14 years of age, of dwarf-like figure, with woolly hair, broad nostrils, but without the dark skin and wide everted lips which characterize the negro type. This pleasing-looking, symmetri
cally-formed girl had been brought up in the house of a Spaniard, apparently with the pious object of rescuing her soul front heathenism. The poor little Negrilla hardly understood her own mother-tongue, besides a very little Tagal, so that we had consider able difficulty in understanding each other.
According to Spanish statements the Negritos are found only in five of the Philip pine islands—namely, Luzon, Mindoro, Panay, Negros, and Mindanao—and are esti mated at about 25,000 souls. Remnants of them exist, however, in the interior of some of the other islands in the Eastern archipelago; and they are scattered, also, though in small numbers, through certain islands of Polynesia. They are altogether an island people, and arc hence treated of by Prichard under the designation of Pelagian negroes. By Dr. Pickering they are treated of as a distinct race, resembling the Papuan, but dif fering from it in the diminutive stature, the general absence of a beard, the projecting of the lower part of the face or the inclined profile, and the exaggerated negro features. The hair, also, is more woolly than that of the Papuans, though far from equaling that of the negroes in knotty closeness. By Latham the Negritos are classified under the subdivision of Oceanic C," which subdivision is further modified by him into the designation of " Amphinesians" and "Kelamonesians." The Negritos out of the Philippine islands are found for the most part in the islands embraced under the latter designation, as New Guinea, New Ireland, Solomon's isles, Louisiade, New Cale donia, and Tasmania or Van Diemen's Land. Except in the last-mentioned island, however, the Negritos, strictly speaking—that is, the blackish people with woolly hair do not preponderate over the other native tribes less strongly marked with negro features; while in Tasmania itself the race has almost entirely disappeared, amounting at present to not more than two or three dozen souls. Dr. Pickering is of opinion that the Neg rito race "once occupied more space than it does at this time, and that it has in many instances preceded the dissemination of other races." We conclude with a description of a Negrito native of Erromango (the island where the missionary Williams was mur dered), supplied to Dr. Pickering by Horatio Hales, his associate in the United States exploring expedition: He wns about 5 ft high," says Mr. Hales, "slender and long limbed; lie had close woolly hair, and retreating arched forehead, short and scanty eye brows, and small snub nose, thick lips (especially the upper), a retreating chin, and that projection of the jaws and lower part of the face which is one of the distinctive char acteristics of the negro race Placed in a crowd of African blacks, there was nothing about him by which he could have been distinguished from the rest." See PAPUANS and POLYNESIANS.