indebted to the European for his apprenticeship, it is highly
improbable that either of the conditions present here would have been
likely to occur.

In this same connection a statement by Ling Roth testifies that "the
Beni almost invariably give their fellow Africans sturdy lower limbs
while they do not do so invariably to Europeans. The latter of a
certain type are made to stand on well planted feet, while such
Europeans as are in any way about to use their guns have their legs
bent and puny."

That the work of the African artist, when dealing with Europeans, was
necessarily of an inferior grade must not be assumed to be the rule,
however, though it does seem from the evidence that there is more
unaccountable archaicness in objects of this character than in any
others. Ling Roth, speaking in this same connection, calls attention
to the fact that Benin was not discovered by the Portuguese until
about 1472, and that by the middle of the sixteenth century (_e.g._,
1550) we have an almost perfect figure of a European, presumably made
by a native. "It is inconceivable," he concludes, "that an introduced
art could have developed at so rapid a rate that in seventy years,
probably less, for this art would hardly have been introduced the
first day, such a high pitch of excellence could have been attained by
the natives."

If the Portuguese theory is untenable, the Arabic or Islamic theory is
equally, if not more, unacceptable. In the first place, as has already
been pointed out, Arabic or Islamic art shows absolutely nothing in
art approaching objects of the Benin type. Furthermore, Islam itself
did not appear in Central Africa until the eleventh century, and then
only in the northern and western parts of the Sudan. And it was,
moreover, not until the fourteenth century that it made itself a real
part of the life of the northern country, and not until the eighteenth
that its influence spread into Yorubaland. And then its influence was
only felt in the back country.[59]

Furthermore, according to Frobenius and Ling Roth, respectively, both
the Ilifian region and the Benin territory remain until the
present-day non-Mohammedan in character. This would seem to indicate
Islamic influence in those countries where most of these objects above
described were found has been necessarily very slight; yet such a
culture as the above objects represent was unquestionably a very
integral part of the life of the country and could not pos