OF THE VARIETIES IN THE HUMAN SPECIES.
Every thing which we have hitherto advanced relates to man as an
individual. The history of the species requires a separate detail, of
which the principal facts can only be derived from the varieties that
are found in the inhabitants of different regions. Of the varieties,
the first and the most remarkable is the colour, the second is the form
and size, and the third is the disposition. Considered in its full
extent, each of these objects might afford materials for a volume. Our
remarks, however, shall be general, and confined to such points as have
been established on undoubted testimony.
In examining the surface of the earth, and beginning our inquiries from
the north, we find in Lapland, and in the northern parts of Tartary, a
race of small-sized men, whose figure is uncouth, and whose physiognomy
is as wild as their manners are unpolished. Though they seem to be of a
degenerate species they yet are numerous, and the countries they occupy
are extensive.
The Danish, Swedish, and Muscovite Laplanders, the inhabitants of
Nova-Zembla, the Borandians, the Samoiedes, the Ostiacks of the old
continent, the Greenlanders, and the savages to the north of the
Esquimaux Indians, of the new continent, appear to be of one common
race, which has been extended and multiplied along the coasts of the
northern seas, in deserts and climates, considered as uninhabitable by
every other nation. These people have broad faces and flat noses; their
eyes are of a yellowish brown, inclining to black, their eye-lids are
drawn toward the temples, their cheek-bones are extremely prominent,
their mouths are large, the lower part of their countenances is narrow,
their lips thick and turned outward; their voices are shrill, with
heads bulky, hair black and straight, and skin of a tawny colour. They
are small in stature, and though meagre, they are yet of a squat form.
In general their size is about four feet, and the tallest exceed not
four feet and a half. Among these people, if there is any difference
to be found, it depends on the greater or less degree of deformity.
The Borandians, for example, are still less than the Laplanders. The
white of their eye is of a darker yellow, and they are also more tawny;
and their legs, instead of being slender, like those of the latter,
are thick and bulky. The Samoiedes are more squat than the Laplanders;
their heads are larger, their noses longer, their complexion more dark,
their legs shorter, their hair longer, and their beards more scanty.
The Greenlanders have the most tawny skin, its colour being that of a
deep olive, and it is even said that some of them are as black as those
of Ethiopia. Throughout them all it is to be observed, the women are as
unseemly as the men; and so nearly do they resemble each other, that at
first it is not easy to distinguish them. The women of Greenland are
very small, but well proportioned; their hair is more black, and their
skin softer, than those of the Samoiede women: their breasts are of
such length that children are able to receive the nipple, which is of a
jet black, over the mother's shoulder. Some travellers say they have no
hair but upon the head, and that they are not subject to the periodical
complaints common to the sex. Their visage is large, their eyes small,
black, and lively, and their feet and hands are short. In every other
respect the Samoiede and the Greenland women are similar. The savages
north of the Esquimaux, and even in the northern parts of Newfoundland,
bear a resemblance to the Greenlanders; their eyes, it is true, are
larger, but, like them, they are of small stature, have flat noses, and
large and broad faces.
Nor is it alone in deformity, in diminutiveness, and in the colour
of the hair and eyes, that these nations resemble each other, but
also in their inclinations and manners. Incivility, superstition, and
ignorance, are alike conspicuous in them all.
The Danish Laplanders have a large black cat, which they make a
confidant in all their secrets, a counsellor in all their difficulties,
and whom they consult on all occasions. Among the Swedish Laplanders,
there is in every family a drum, for the purpose of consulting the
devil; and though they are robust and nimble, they are yet so timid and
dastardly, that no inducement can bring them into the field of battle.
Gustavus Adolphus undertook, but undertook in vain, to form a regiment
of Laplanders. Indeed there is reason to suppose that they cannot live
but in their own country, and in their own manner. In travelling over
the ice and snow, they use skates made of fur, which are in length
about two ells, and half a foot broad, and which are raised and pointed
before, and fastened to the foot by straps of leather. With these
they make such dispatch on the snow, that they easily overtake the
swiftest animals. They also use a pole, pointed with iron at one end,
and rounded at the other. This pole serves to push them along, to
direct their course, to keep them from falling, to stop the impetuosity
of their career, and to kill what game they overtake. With their
skates they descend the steepest precipices, and scale the most craggy
mountains; nor are the women less skilful in such exercises than the
men. They are all accustomed to the bow and arrow; and it is asserted,
that the Muscovite Laplanders launch a javelin with so much dexterity,
that at the distance of thirty paces they are sure to hit a mark no
larger than a silver crown, and with such force, that it will transfix
a human body. They hunt the ermine, the fox, the lynx, and the martin,
whose skins they barter for brandy and tobacco. Their food consists
principally of dried fish, and the flesh of the bear and rein-deer. Of
the bones of fishes, pounded and mixed with the tender bark of the pine
or birch-tree, is their bread composed. Their drink is either train-oil
or brandy and when deprived of these, their favourite beverage is
water, in which juniper-berries have been infused.
Examined in a moral sense, the Laplanders have few virtues, and all
the vices of ignorance. Immersed in superstition and idolatry, of a
Supreme Being they have no conception; nor is it easy to determine
which is most conspicuous, the grossness of their understandings, or
the barbarity of their manners, being equally destitute of courage and
shame. Boys and girls, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, bathe
together naked, without being in the smallest degree ashamed. When they
come out of their baths, which are warm, they immediately go into the
rivers. It is the custom among all these people to offer their wives
and daughters to strangers, and are much offended if the offer is not
accepted.
In winter, the Laplanders, clothe themselves with the skin of the
rein-deer, and in summer with the skins of birds. To the uses of linen
they are utter strangers. The women of Nova-Zembla have the nose and
ears pierced, and ornament them with pendants of blue stone; and to add
a lustre to their charms, they form blue streaks upon their forehead
and chin. The men wear no hair on the head, and cut their beards round.
The Greenland women dress themselves with the skin of the dog-fish:
they also paint their faces with blue and yellow, and wear pendants in
their ears. They all live underground, or in huts almost so, covered
with the bark of trees, or the bones of fishes. Some of them form
subterraneous trenches, from one hut to another, by which, during the
winter months, they can enjoy the society of their neighbours without
going out. A continued series of darkness for several months obliges
them to illuminate their dreary abodes with lamps, in which they burn
the same train oil they use as drink. In summer they have scarcely more
comfort than in winter, being obliged to live perpetually in a thick
smoke, which is the only device they have contrived for the destruction
of gnats, which are perhaps more numerous in these regions of frost,
than in those of the most scorching heat. Under all these hardships
they are subject to few diseases, and they live to a prodigious
age. So vigorous indeed are the old men, that they are hardly to be
distinguished from the young. The only infirmity they experience is
that of blindness, which is very common among them. Perpetually dazzled
by the strong reflection of the snow in winter, and enveloped in clouds
of smoke in summer, few when advanced in years are found to retain the
use of their eyes.
As all the different tribes or nations, therefore, resemble each other
in form, in shape, in colour, in manners, and even in oddity of
customs, they are undoubtedly of the same race of men. The practice of
offering their women to strangers, and of being pleased when they are
thought worthy of caresses, may proceed from a consciousness of their
own deformity as well as that of their women. In appearance, the woman,
whom a stranger has accepted, they afterwards respect for her superior
beauty. At any rate it is certain, although remote from each other,
and separated by a great sea, the custom is general in all the above
countries. We even meet with it among the Crim Tartars, the Calmucks,
and among several other nations of Siberia and of Tartary, where
personal deformity is almost as conspicuous as in those of the North.
In all the neighbouring nations, on the other hand, as in China, and in
Persia[C], where the women are remarkable for beauty, the men are also
remarkable for jealousy.
[C] La Boulai tells us, that in order to prevent all cause of
jealousy, when the women of Schach die, the place of their interment
is industriously kept secret, in like manner as the ancient Egyptians
delayed the embalment of their wives for several days after their
decease, that the surgeons might have no temptation.
In examining the different nations adjacent to this extensive
territory, which the Laplanders occupy, we find they have no affinity.
Alone are they resembled by the Ostiacks and the Tongusians, whose
situation is to the south and south-east of the Samoiedes. The
Samoiedes and Borandians bear no resemblance to the Russians; nor do
the Laplanders to the Fins, the Goths, the Danes, or the Norwegians.
The Greenlanders are likewise entirely different from the savages of
Canada, who are tall and well proportioned, and though the tribes
differ from each other, they do more so from the Laplanders. The
Ostiacks, however, seem to be a less ugly and taller branch of the
Samoiedes. They live on raw fish or flesh, and for drink they prefer
blood to water. Like the Laplanders and the Samoiedes they are immersed
in idolatry; nor are they known to have any fixed abode. In fine,
they appear to form a shade between the race of Laplanders and the
Tartarians; or rather, indeed, may it be said that the Laplanders,
the Samoiedes, the Borandians, the Nova-Zemblians, and perhaps the
Greenlanders, and the savages to the north of the Esquimaux Indians,
are Tartars reduced to the lowest point of degeneracy; that the
Ostiacks are less degenerated than the Tongusians, who though to the
full as ugly, are yet more sizeable and shapely. The Samoiedes and
Laplanders live in the latitude of 68 or 69, the Ostiacks and the
Tongusians in that of 60. The Tartars, who are situated along the
Wolga, in the latitude of 55, are gross, stupid, and beastly; like
the Tongusians, they have hardly any idea of religion, nor will they
receive for their wives any women until they have had an intercourse
with other men.
The Tartars occupy the greatest part of Asia, and in fact extend from
Russia to Kamtschatka, a space in length from 11 to 1200 leagues and
from 700 to 750 in breadth; a circumference twenty times larger than
the whole kingdom of France. The Tartars terminate China, the kingdoms
of Boutan and Alva, and the empires of Mogul and Persia, even to the
Caspian Sea, on the north and west. They spread along the Wolga, and
over the west coast of the Caspian Sea, even to Daghestan. They have
penetrated to the north coast of the Black Sea, and formed settlements
in the Crimea, and in the neighbourhood of Moldavia and the Ukraine.
All these people have the upper part of their face very large and
wrinkled even while yet in their youth. Their noses are short and
flat, their eyes little, and sunk in their head; their cheek-bones
are high; the lower part of their face is narrow; their chin is long
and prominent; their teeth are long and straggling; there eye-brows
are so large as to cover the eyes; their eye-lids are thick; the face
broad and flat; their complexion tawny, their hair black; they have
but little beard, which is disposed like the Chinese; they have thick
thighs and short legs, and though but of middling stature, they are
remarkably strong and robust. The ugliest of them are the Calmucks,
in whose appearance there seems to be something frightful. They are
all wanderers and vagabonds; and their only shelter is that of tents,
made of hair or skins. Their food is horse-flesh, and flesh of other
animals, either raw or a little softened by being between the horse
and the saddle. They eat also fish dried in the sun. Their most common
drink is mare's milk, fermented, with millet ground into meal. They all
have the head shaved, except a tuft of hair on the top, which they let
grow sufficiently long to form into tresses on each side of the face.
The women, who are as ugly as the men, wear their hair, which they
bind up with bits of copper, and other ornaments of the same nature.
The majority of these tribes are alike strangers to religion, morality,
and decency. They are robbers by profession; and those of Daghestan,
who live in the neighbourhood of civilized countries, sustain a great
traffic of slaves, whom they carry off by forte, and afterwards sell to
the Turks and the Persians. Their wealth consists chiefly of horses,
which are more numerous, perhaps, in Tartary than in any other part
of the world. They live in the same place with their horses, and are
continually employed in training, dressing, and exercising them, whom
they reduce to such implicit obedience, that they actually appear to
understand, as it were, the intention of their riders.
To attain a knowledge of the particular differences which subsist in
the race of Tartars, we have only to compare the descriptions that
travellers have given of their different tribes. The Calmucks, who
are situated in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, between the
Muscovites and the great Tartars, are, according to Tavernier, robust,
but the most ugly and the most deformed of all human beings. Their
faces are so flat and so broad that their eyes, which are uncommonly
small, are from five to six inches asunder; and their noses so flat
that two holes are barely perceivable instead of nostrils. Next to the
Calmucks, the natives of Daghestan rank in the class of deformity.
The little Tartars, or the Tartars of Nogai, who dwell near the Black
Sea, are less ugly than the Calmucks, though their faces are broad,
their eyes small, and in their figures there is a great resemblance.
From their intermixture with the Circassians, the Moldavians, and
other neighbouring nations, it is probable that this race have lost
much of their original ugliness. The Tartars of Siberia have, like the
Calmucks, broad faces, short flat noses, and small eyes; and though
their language is different, yet they bear so strong a resemblance to
each other, that they can only be considered as the same people. The
further we advance eastward we find the features of the Tartars are
gradually softened, but the characteristics essential to the race still
remain. The Mongou Tartars, according to Palafox, who conquered China,
and who were the most polished, though they are the least deformed,
yet, like all the other tribes, their eyes are small, faces broad and
flat, scanty beards, either black or red; their noses compressed and
short, and their complexions tawny. The people of Thibet, and the other
southern provinces of Tartary, are also of a more agreeable aspect.
Mr. Sanchez, formerly first physician to the Russian army, a gentleman
distinguished by his abilities, has obligingly communicated to me in
writing the remarks he had made in the course of his travels through
Tartary.
In the years 1735, 1736, and 1737, he visited the Ukraine, the banks
of the Don to the sea of Zabach, and the confines of Cuban to Asoph.
He traversed the deserts between the countries of the Crimea and
Backmut; he went among the Calmucks, who wander about without any
fixed habitation, from the kingdom of Casan to the banks of the Don;
as also the Crimea and Nogai-Tartars, who wander between the Crimea
and the Ukraine, and likewise the Kergissi and Tcheremissi-Tartars,
who are situated to the north of Astracan, between the latitude of 50
and 60. These according to him are more diminutive and squat, less
active and more corpulent; their eyes are black, complexions tawny, and
their faces larger and broader than those we have mentioned. He adds,
that among these Tartars, he saw numbers of men and women who had no
resemblance to them, but were as white as the people of Poland. They
have many slaves among them, brought from among the Russians and Poles;
and as their religion admits a number of wives and concubines; and as
their Sultans, and Murzas or nobles, prefer the women of Georgia and
Circassia for their wives, the children produced from such alliances
are less ugly, and more fair than from connections among themselves.
There is even a whole tribe of Tartars, called Kabardinski-Tartars,
who are remarkable for their beauty. Of these Mr. Sanchez saw _three
hundred_ on horseback, who were going to enter into the service of
Russia; and he declares that he never saw men of a more noble and
manly figure; their complexions were fair, fresh and ruddy; their eyes
were large and black, and they were tall and well proportioned. He was
assured by the Lieutenant-general of Serapikin, who had made a long
residence at Kabarda, that the women were equally handsome; but this
tribe, so different from all the Tartars around them, came originally
from the Ukraine, and removed to Kabarda about the beginning of the
last century.
Though the Tartar blood is intermixed, on one side with that of the
Chinese, and on the other with that of the Oriental Russians, yet there
is sufficient characteristics of the race remaining to suppose them
of one common stock. Among the Muscovites are numbers, whose form of
visage and body bear a strong resemblance to those of the Tartars.
The Chinese are totally different in their dispositions, manners, and
customs. The Tartars are naturally fierce, warlike, and addicted to
the chace, inured to fatigue, fond of independence, and to a degree
of brutality uncivilized. Altogether opposite are the manners of
the Chinese; they are effeminate, pacific, indolent, superstitious,
slavish, and full of ceremony and compliment. In their features, and
form, however, there is so striking a resemblance, as to leave a doubt
whether they did not spring from the same race.
Some travellers tell us, that the Chinese are large and fat, their
limbs well formed, their faces broad and round, their eyes small,
eye-brows large, their eye-lids turned upwards, and their noses short
and flat; that upon the chin they have very little beard, and upon each
lip not more than seven or eight tufts of hair. Those who inhabit the
southern provinces are more brown and tawny than those in the northern;
that in colour they resemble the natives of Mauritania, or the more
swarthy Spaniards; but those in the middle provinces are as fair as the
Germans.
According to Dampier and others, the Chinese are not all fat and bulky,
but they consider being so as an ornament to the human figure. In
speaking of the island of St. John, on the coast of China, the former
says, that the inhabitants are tall, erect, and little encumbered
with fat; that their countenances are long, and their foreheads high;
their eyes little, their nose tolerably large, and raised in the
middle; their mouths of a moderate size, their lips rather thin, their
complexion ash-colour, and their hair black; that they have naturally
little beard, and even that they pluck out, leaving only a few hairs
upon the chin and upper lip.
According to Le Gentil, the Chinese have nothing disagreeable in their
countenance, especially in the northern provinces. In the southern
ones, when necessarily much exposed to the sun, they are swarthy.
That in general their eyes are small and of an oval form, their nose
short, their bodies thick, and their stature of a middling height; he
assures us that the women do every thing in their power to make their
eyes appear little and oblong, that for this purpose it is a constant
practice with young girls, instructed by their mothers, forcibly to
extend their eye-lids. This, with the addition of a flat nose, ears
long, large, open, and pendent, is accounted complete beauty. He adds,
their complexion is delicate, their lips of a fine vermilion, their
mouths well proportioned, their hair very black, but that chewing
beetle blackens their teeth, and by the use of paint they so greatly
injure their skin, that before the age of thirty they have all the
appearance of old age.
Palafox assures us that the Chinese are more fair than the oriental
Tartars; that they have also less beards, but that in every other
respect their visages are nearly the same. It is very uncommon, he
says, to see blue eyes either in China or in the Philippine islands;
and when seen, it is in Europeans, or in those of European parents.
Inigo de Biervillas asserts, that the women of China are better made
than the men. Of the latter, he says, their visages are large and
complexions rather yellow; their noses broad, and generally compressed,
and their bodies are of a thickness greatly resembling that of a
Hollander. The women, on the contrary, though they are generally
rather fat than otherwise, are however of a free and easy shape; their
complexion and skin are admirable; and their eyes are incomparably
fine; but from the great pains taken to compress it in their infancy,
there are few to be seen of whose nose the shape is even tolerable.
All the Dutch travellers allow that the Chinese have in general broad
faces, small eyes, flat noses, and hardly any beard; that the natives
of Canton, and the whole of the southern coast, are as tawny as the
inhabitants of Fez, in Africa, but that those of the interior provinces
are mostly fair. Now if we compare the descriptions we have already
given, from the above authors, of the Chinese and Tartars, hardly
will a doubt remain that, although they differ a little in stature
and countenance, they originate from one stock, and that the points
in which they differ proceed entirely either from the climate, or
the mixture of races. Chardin says, "the size of the little Tartars
is commonly smaller than the Europeans by four inches, and they are
thicker in the same proportion. Their complexion is of the colour
of copper; their faces are flat, large, and square; their noses
compressed, and their eyes are little. Now these are exactly the
features of the inhabitants of China; for I have found, after the most
minute investigation, that there is the same conformation of face and
body throughout the nations to the east and north of the Caspian Sea,
and to the east of the peninsula of Malacca. From this circumstance
I was inclined to believe that, however different they may appear
either in their complexion or manners, they proceed from one stock, for
difference of colour depends entirely upon the quality of the climate
and the food; and difference in manners is determined by the nature of
the soil, and by the greater or less degree of opulence."
Father Parennin, who lived long in China, and whose observations are so
accurate and so minute, tells us, that the western neighbours of the
Chinese, from Thibet northward to Chamo, differ from the Chinese in
manners, language, physiognomy, and external conformation; that they
are a people rude, ignorant, and slothful, charges that cannot be laid
to the Chinese; and that when any of these Tartars go to Pekin, and the
Chinese are asked the reason of this difference, they answer, that it
proceeds from the water and the soil; in other words, that it is the
nature of the country which produces this change upon the bodies and
dispositions of the inhabitants. He adds, that this remark seems to be
more applicable with respect to China than to any other country he ever
saw; that following the emperor northward into Tartary, to the latitude
of 48, he found Chinese from Nanquin who had settled there, whose
children had become actual Mongous, being bow-legged, with their heads
sunk into their shoulders, and a countenance which created disgust.
So strongly do the Japanese resemble the Chinese, that we can hardly
scruple to rank them in the same class. Living in a more southern
climate they are more yellow or more brown. In general their stature is
short, their face, as well as nose, broad and flat, their eyes small,
their hair black, and their beard little more than perceptible. They
are haughty, fond of war, full of dexterity and vigour, civil and
obliging, smooth-tongued, and courteous, but fickle and vain. With
astonishing patience they sustain hunger, thirst, cold, heat, fatigue,
and all the other hardships of life. Their ceremonies, or rather
grimaces, in eating, are numerous and uncouth. They are laborious
skilful artificers, and, in a word, their dispositions, manners, and
customs are the same as the Chinese.
One singular custom which they have in common, is, so to contract the
feet of the women, that they are hardly able to support themselves.
Some travellers mention, that in China, when a girl has passed her
third year, they bend the foot in such a manner that the toes are
made to come under the sole; that they apply to it a strong water,
which burns away the flesh; and then they wrap them up in a number of
bandages. They add, that the women feel the pain of this operation all
their lives; that they walk with great difficulty; and that their gait
is to the last degree ungraceful. Other travellers say that they only
compress the foot with so much violence as to prevent its growth; but
they unanimously allow, that every woman of condition, and even every
handsome woman must have a foot small enough to enter with ease the
slipper of a child of six years old.
The Japanese, and the Chinese, we may therefore conclude, proceed
from the same stock, that for their civilization we must recur to a
very distant part of antiquity, and that they differ more from the
Tartars in their manners than their figure. To this civilization, the
excellence of the soil, the mildness of the climate, and their vicinity
to the sea, have perhaps greatly contributed; while the Tartars, from
their inland situation, and being separated from other nations by high
mountains, have remained wanderers over their vast deserts, which are
situated under a climate to the last degree inclement, especially
towards the north. The country of Jesso, which is to the north of
Japan, and of which, from its situation, the climate might be expected
to be temperate, is however cold, barren, and mountainous, and its
inhabitants are altogether different from those of China and Japan.
They are ignorant and brutal, without manners, and without arts. Their
bodies are short and thick; their hair long, their eyes black, their
foreheads flat; and their complexions, though yellow, are rather less
so than that of the Japanese. Over their bodies, and even the face,
they have much hair; they live like savages, and their food consists
of the oily parts of whales and other fishes. They are to the last
degree indolent and slovenly; their children go almost naked; nor have
their women devised any external ornament beyond that of painting their
eye-brows and lips of a blue colour. The sole occupation and pleasure
of the men are hunting and fishing; and though they have some customs
similar to the Japanese, as that of quavering when they sing, yet in
general they bear a much more striking resemblance to the northern
Tartars, or to the Samoiedes, than to the Japanese.
In examining nations adjacent to China, on the south and west, we
find that the Cochin-Chinese, who inhabit a mountainous region to the
southward of China, are more tawny and more ugly than the Chinese; and
that the Tonquinese, whose country is more fertile, and whose climate
is more mild, are in every respect proportionally more handsome.
According to Dampier, the Tonquinese are of a middling height; and
though their complexion is tawny, their skin is so delicate and smooth,
that the smallest change is perceptible in their countenance, when
they happen either to grow pale, or to redden; a circumstance in which
they differ from all other Indians. In common their visage is flat and
oval; their nose and lips are thick; and they use every art, in order
to render their teeth as black as possible.
These nations, therefore, differ but little from the Chinese. They
resemble the natives of the southern provinces in colour; if they are
more tawny, it is because they live in a warmer climate; and though
their faces are less flat, and their noses less contracted, we yet
cannot help considering them as a people of the same origin.
Thus it is also with the natives of Siam, of Pegu, of Aracan, of Laos,
&c. Of all these the features have a considerable resemblance to those
of the Chinese; and though they differ from them in colour, yet their
affinity to the Chinese is greater than to the other Indians. The size
of the Siamese, says Loubère, is rather small, their bodies are well
proportioned, their faces are large, and their cheek-bones prominent,
their forehead is suddenly contracted, and terminates in a point like
the chin; their eyes are small and oblique; the white of the eye is
somewhat yellow; their cheeks are hollow, from the elevation of the
cheek-bones; their mouths are large, their lips thick, their teeth
black, their complexion is coarse, and of a brown colour mixed with
red, or, according to some travellers, of an ash colour, to which the
continual sultriness of the air contributes as much as the birth; their
nose is short and rounded at the point; their ears are large, and the
bigger they are the more they are held in estimation.
This taste for long ears is highly prevalent in the east; in different
places different arts are used to render them so, and in some they draw
them down almost to the shoulders. As for the Siamese, however, their
ears are naturally larger than ours; their hair is thick, black, and
straight; and both sexes wear it so short, that it does not descend
lower than the ear. They anoint their lips with a kind of perfumed
pomatum, which makes them appear very pale; they have little beard, and
that they pluck out by the roots; nor is it customary with them to pare
their nails.
Struys says, that the Siamese women wear pendants in their ears of such
mass and weight, that the holes become so large the thumb may be put
through them. He adds, that the complexion of both sexes is tawny; that
though not tall, they are shapely; and that the Siamese are in general
a mild and a civilized people.
According to Father Tachard, the Siamese are exceedingly alert, and
have among them tumblers, &c. not less expert and skilful than those
in Europe. He says, that the custom they have of blackening the teeth,
proceeds from an idea that it is not becoming in man to have teeth
white like the brute creation; that it is for this reason they begrime
them with black varnish, and then abstain from meat for several days,
that it may thoroughly adhere.
The inhabitants of the kingdom of Pegu and Aracan are more black, yet
bear a strong resemblance both to the Siamese and the Chinese. Those of
Aracan put great value upon a forehead large and flat, and to render
them so, they apply a plate of lead to the forehead of their children
the minute they are born. Their nostrils are large, their eyes are
small and lively, and their ears are of such length as to hang over
their shoulders. They feed without disgust on mice, rats, serpents,
and fish, however corrupted. Their women are tolerably fair, and their
ears are as long as those of the men. The people of Achen, who are
situated further north than those of Aracan, have also flat visages,
and an olive-coloured skin; they allow their boys to go quite naked,
and their girls have only a slight plate of silver to conceal what
Nature dictates.
None of these nations differ much from the Chinese, and all resemble
the Tartars in the smallness of their eyes, the largeness of their
visage, and the olive colour of their skin. In proceeding southward the
features begin to change more sensibly. The inhabitants of Malacca,
and of the island of Sumatra, are black, diminutive, lively, and well
proportioned. Though naked from the middle upward, a little kind of
scarf excepted, which they wear sometimes over the right and sometimes
over the left shoulder, their aspect is fierce. They are naturally
brave, and even formidable when they have swallowed a certain quantity
of opium, which intoxicates them with a kind of fury.
According to Dampier, the inhabitants of Sumatra and Malacca are of the
same race; they speak nearly the same language, and they have the same
bold and haughty disposition. They are of a middling stature, their
visage long, their eyes black, their noses of a moderate size, their
lips thin, and their teeth are blackened.
In the island of Pugniatan, or Pissagan, within 16 leagues of Sumatra,
the natives are tall, and of a yellow complexion, like the Brazilians;
their hair is long, and they go completely naked. Those of the Nicobar
islands, which lie northward of Sumatra, are of a tawny or yellowish
colour, and they also go naked. In speaking of these last islanders,
Dampier says, that they are tall and well proportioned; that their
visage is long, their hair black and straight, and their noses of a
moderate size; that the women have no eye-brows, which it is probable
they do not suffer to grow. In Sombreo, an island north of the Nicobar
islands, the inhabitants are very black, and they paint their faces
with green, yellow, and other colours.
These natives of Malacca, of Sumatra, and of the little adjacent
islands, though different from each other, are much more so from the
Chinese and the Tartars, and seem to have sprung from another race. The
inhabitants of Java, nevertheless, have not the smallest resemblance
to those of Sumatra and Malacca, while to the Chinese (the colour alone
excepted, which, like the Malaccas, is red mixed with black) they
seem to be intimately related. Pigafetta describes them as a people
not unlike the Brazilians. Their complexion, says he, is coarse, and
their bodies are square and muscular, though in size they are neither
very tall nor very short; their visage is flat, their cheeks flabby,
their eyes small, their eye-brows inclined to the temples, and their
beards thin and short. Father Tachard says, that the people of Java are
well made and robust; that they are lively and resolute; and that the
extreme heat of the climate obliges them to go almost naked. From other
descriptions it appears, that the inhabitants of Java are neither black
nor white, but of a purplish red, and that they are mild, familiar and
courteous.
Legat informs us, that the women of Java, who are not exposed to the
rays of the sun, are less tawny than the men, that their countenance
is comely, their breasts prominent and shapely, their complexions
beautiful, though brown; their hands delicate, their hair soft, their
eyes brilliant, their smile agreeable, and that numbers of them dance
with elegance and spirit.
Of the Dutch travellers, the generality allow, that the natives of
this island are robust, well proportioned, nervous, and full of
muscular vigour; that their visage is flat, their cheek-bones broad and
prominent, their eye-lids large, their eyes small, their hair long, and
their complexion tawny; that they have little beard; that they wear
their hair and their nails very long; and that in order to beautify
their teeth, they polish them with files. In a little island fronting
that of Java, the women are tawny, their eyes small, their mouths
large, their noses flat, and their hair long and black.
From all these accounts we may infer, that the inhabitants of Java
greatly resemble the Tartars and Chinese; while those of Malacca,
Sumatra, and of the neighbouring little islands differ from them
equally in the features of the face, and in the form of the body.
This may have very naturally happened; for the peninsula of Malacca,
the islands of Sumatra and Java, as well as all the other islands
of the Indian Archipelago, must have been peopled by the nations of
the neighbouring continents, and even by the Europeans, who have had
settlements there for these three hundred years. This must have
occasioned a very great variety in the inhabitants both in the features
and colour, and in the form of the body and proportion of the limbs.
In the island of Java, for example, there is a people called the
_Chacrelas_, who are altogether different, not only from the natives
of the island, but even from all the other Indians. The Chacrelas
are white and fair, and their eyes are so weak that, incapable of
supporting the light of the sun, they go about with them lowered and
almost closed till night, when their vision becomes more strong.
According to Pyrard, all the inhabitants of the Malacca islands are
similar to those of Sumatra and Java in manners, mode of living,
habits, language, and colour. According to Maldeslo, the men are rather
black than tawny, and the women are more fair. They have all, he says,
black hair, large eyes, eye-brows and eye-lids, and bodies vigorous
and robust. They are also nimble and active; and though their hair
very soon becomes grey, they yet live to a great age. Each island, he
further remarks, has its particular language; nor can it be doubted but
that they have been peopled by different nations. The inhabitants of
Borneo and of Baly, he adds, are rather black than tawny; but according
to other travellers, they are only brown like the other Indians.
Carreri says, that the inhabitants of Ternate are of the same colour
as those of Malacca, which is a little darker than those of Philippine
islands; that their countenances are comely; that the men are more
shapely than the women, and that both bestow particular care upon their
hair.
The Dutch travellers tell us, that the natives of the Island of Banda
are remarkable for longevity; that they have seen one man at the age
of 130, and numbers on the verge of that period; that in general they
are indolent and inactive; and that while the men amuse themselves in
sauntering abroad, the women are subjected to all the offices of labour
at home. Dampier observes, that the original natives of the island
of Timor, which is one of those most adjacent to New Holland, are a
middling size, and of an erect form; that their limbs are slender,
their visages long, their hair black and bristly, and their skin
exceedingly black; that they are alert and dexterous, but superlatively
indolent and slothful. He adds, however, that the inhabitants of the
Bay of Laphno are, for the most part, tawny or copper-coloured.
In turning northward we find Manilla, and the other Philippine islands,
of which the inhabitants are perhaps more intermixed than those of any
other region in the universe, by the alliances they have formed with
the Spaniards, the Indians, the Chinese, the Malabars, the blacks,
&c. The negroes, who live in the rocks and woods of Manilla, differ
entirely from the other inhabitants; of some the hair is short and
frizly, like the negroes of Angola, and of others it is long. Their
colour consists of various shades of black. According to Gemelli
Carreri, there are some among them who, like the islanders mentioned
by Ptolemy, have tails of the length of four or five inches. This
traveller adds, that he has been assured, by Jesuits of undoubted
testimony, that in the island of Mindoro, which is not far from
Manilla, there is a race of men called _Manghians_, who have all tails
of that length, and that some of these men had even embraced the
Catholic faith; that they are of an olive colour, and have long hair.
Dampier says, that the inhabitants of the island of Mindanao, which is
one of the principal and most southerly of the Philippines, are of a
middling height, that their limbs are small, their bodies erect, their
heads small, their visages oval, their foreheads flat, their eyes black
and small, their noses short, their mouths moderate, their lips thin
and red, their teeth black, their hair black and smooth, and their skin
tawny, but of a brighter yellow than many of the other Indians; that in
point of complexion the women have the advantage of the men; that they
are also more shapely, and have features tolerably regular; that the
men are in general ingenious and alert, but slothful, and addicted to
thievery.
Northward of Manilla is the island of Formosa, situated at no great
distance from the coast of Fokien, in China, but the natives bear no
resemblance to the Chinese. According to Struys, the Formosans are of
small stature, particularly those who inhabit the mountains, and that
they have broad faces. The women have large coarse breasts, and a beard
like the men; their ears, naturally long, they render still more so
by thick shells, which they wear as pendants; their hair is black and
long, and their complexions are of different degrees of yellow. Though
averse to labour, they are yet admirably skilled in the use of the
javelin and bow; they are excellent swimmers, and run with incredible
swiftness. Struys declares, that in this island he actually saw a man
with a tail above a foot long, covered with reddish hair, not unlike
that of an ox, and that this man assured him, if it was a blemish to
have a tail, it proceeded from the climate, for all the natives of the
southern part of the island had tails like himself.
I know not what credit we ought to give to this relation of Struys, for
if the fact be true, it must at least be exaggerated; it differs from
what other travellers have said with respect to these men with tails,
and even from the account of Ptolemy, and from that of Mark Paul, the
latter of whom, in his geographical description, says, that in the
kingdom of Lambry there are mountaineers who have tails of the length
of the hand. Struys seems to rest upon the authority of Mark Paul, as
Gemelli Carreri does upon that of Ptolemy, though the tail he mentions
to have seen is widely different in its dimensions from those of the
blacks of Manilla, the inhabitants of Lambry, and other places, as
described by other writers.
The editor of the description of the island of Formosa, from the
memoirs of Psalmanazar, makes no mention of a people so very
extraordinary; but says, that though the climate is exceedingly hot,
the women, those especially who are not exposed to the rays of the sun,
are exceedingly fair and beautiful; that with certain lotions they take
particular care to preserve their complexion; that they are equally
attentive to the beauty of their teeth, and instead of rendering them
black, like the Japanese and Chinese, they use every effort to keep
them white; that the men are not tall, but thick and strong; that they
are commonly vigorous, indefatigable, skilful in war, and dexterous in
manual exercises.
In their accounts of the natives of Formosa, the Dutch travellers
differ from all those we have yet mentioned. Mandelslo, as well as
the writers of the collection of voyages, which paved the way for the
establishment of the Dutch East-India Company, informs us that these
islanders are taller than the Europeans; that the colour of their skin
is of a dark brown; that their bodies are hairy; and that the women are
low in stature, but robust, fat, and tolerably well proportioned.
In few writers respecting this island do we find any mention of men
with tails; and of the form and features of the natives, authors differ
also prodigiously. With respect to one fact they seem, however, to
agree, though it is not perhaps less extraordinary, namely, that the
women are not allowed to bear children before the age of 35, though
allowed to marry long before that period. In speaking of this custom,
Rechteren thus expresses himself: "After the women are married,
they must not become mothers till they have completed their 35th or
37th year. When they happen to be pregnant before that time, their
priestesses trample upon their bellies with their feet, and thus
occasion a miscarriage, as painful and dangerous, if not more so than
the natural labour. To bring a child into the world previous to the age
prescribed, would be not only a disgrace but an enormous crime. I have
seen women who had suffered 16 of these forced miscarriages, and were
only allowed to bring into the world their 17th child."
The Mariana-islands, or the Ladrones, which are the most remote from
the eastern coast, are inhabited by a people rude and uncivilized.
Father Gobien says that, till the arrival of the Europeans, they had
never seen fire; and that nothing could exceed their astonishment when,
on the arrival of Magellan, they first beheld it. Their complexion is
tawny, though less brown than that of the natives of the Philippines;
in strength and robustness they surpass the Europeans. They are tall
and well proportioned; and though they feed solely on roots, fruits,
and fish, they are very corpulent, which however, does not check their
nimbleness and activity. They live to a great age; nor is it uncommon
to find among them persons who, strangers to sickness, have already
reached their 100th year.
Carreri says, that the natives of these islands are of a gigantic
figure, corpulent, and so strong that they can raise a weight of 500
pounds upon their shoulders. In general their hair is frizly, their
noses thick, their eyes are large, and their colour like that of the
Indians. The natives of Guan, one of these islands, have long black
hair, large noses, thick lips, white teeth, long visages, and fierce
aspects. They are also exceedingly robust; and it is said they do not
in height measure less than seven feet.
Southward of the Mariana-islands, and eastward of the Malaccas, we find
the country of the Papous, and New Guinea, which seem to be the most
southern regions. Argensola tells us, that the Papous are as black as
the Caffres, that their hair is frizly, and their countenance meagre
and disagreeable. In this country, nevertheless, there are people as
fair as the Germans; but their eyes are exceedingly weak and delicate.
According to Le Maire, they are not only very black, but also savage
and brutal; they wear rings in their ears and nostrils, and sometimes
also in the partition of the nose; they likewise wear bracelets of
mother-of-pearl above the elbows and on the wrists, and cover their
heads with a cap made of the bark of a tree painted with several
colours. They are well proportioned, have a sufficiency of beard; their
teeth are black, as is also the hair, which, though frizly, is not so
woolly as that of the negroes. They run very fast, and their weapons
consist of clubs, spears, and sabres, made of hard wood, the use of
iron being unknown to them. They also employ their teeth as weapons,
and bite like dogs; beetle and pimento mixed with chalk make part of
their food. The women are of hideous aspect; their breasts hang down
to the navel; their bellies are extremely prominent; their arms and
limbs are small; and in their visages they resemble so many apes.
Dampier says, that the natives of the island of Sabala, in New Guinea,
are a class of tawny Indians, with long black hair, and whose manners
are not much different from those of Mindanao, and the other oriental
islands; but besides them, it is also peopled by negroes, with short
woolly hair. Speaking of another island, which he calls _Garret-Denys_,
he says, that the natives are black, vigorous, and well shaped; that
their heads are large and round; that their hair, which they cut in
different fashions, and tinge with different colours, as red, white,
and yellow, is short and frizly; that their faces are large and round,
and their noses thick and flat; that nevertheless their physiognomy
would not be absolutely disagreeable, did they not thrust a kind of
peg, about one inch thick and four inches long, across the nostrils, so
that both ends may touch the cheek-bones; and that they pierce their
ears with similar pegs.
According to the same author, the natives of the coast of New Holland,
which is in the latitude of 16, and to the south of the island of
Timor, are of all mankind perhaps the most miserable, and the most upon
a level with the brutes. They are tall, erect, and thin; their limbs
are long and slender; their heads are large; their foreheads round, and
their eye-brows thick. Their eye-lids are always half shut; a habit
they contract in their infancy to save their eyes from the gnats, and
as they never open their eyes, they cannot see at a distance without
raising their head, as if looking at something over their heads. Their
noses and lips are thick, and their mouths large. They pull out, it
would seem, the two front teeth of the upper jaw; for in neither sex,
nor at any age, are they ever found to possess these teeth. They have
no beard; their visage is long, nor does it contain one pleasing
feature. Their hair is short, black, and frizly, like that of the
negroes; and their skin is as black as those of Guinea. Their whole
cloathing consists of a bit of the bark of a tree fastened round the
middle. They have no houses, and they sleep on the bare ground, without
any covering. They associate, men, women, and children, promiscuously,
in troops, to the number of 20 or 30. Their only food is a small fish,
which they catch by forming reservoirs in little arms of the sea, and
to every kind of grain or bread they are utter strangers.
The natives of another part of New Holland, in the 22d or 23d degree
of south latitude, seem to be of the same race as those We have now
described; they are ugly to an extreme; their eyes have the same defect
as those of the others; their skin is black, their hair frizly, and
their bodies tall and slender.
From these descriptions it appears, that the islands and coasts of the
Indian ocean are peopled by men widely different from each other. The
natives of Malacca, of Sumatra, and of the Nicobar islands, appear to
derive their origin from those of the peninsula of Indus, and those of
Java from the Chinese, the white men excepted, who go by the name of
Chacrelas, and who must have sprung from the Europeans. The natives of
the Malacca islands seem also in general to have originated from the
Indians in the peninsula; but those of the island of Timor, which is
near to New Holland, are almost similar to the people of that country.
Those of Formosa, and the Mariana islands, resemble each other in
size, vigour, and features, and seem to form a race distinct from that
of every other people around them. The Papus, and other nations in
the neighbourhood of New Guinea, are real blacks, and resemble those
of Africa, though at a prodigious distance from that continent, and
separated from it by a space of 2,200 leagues of sea. The natives of
New Holland resemble the Hottentots. But before we draw any conclusions
from all these relations and differences, it is necessary to pursue our
enquiries with respect to the different nations of Asia and Africa.
The Moguls, and other nations of the peninsula of India, are not
unlike the Europeans in shape and in features; but they differ more or
less from them in colour. The Moguls are olive, though in the Indian
language the word _Mogul_ signifies _White_. The women are extremely
delicate, and they bathe themselves very often: they are of an olive
colour as well as the men; and, what is opposite to the women in
Europe, their legs and thighs are long, and their bodies are short.
Tavernier says, that after passing Lahor, and the kingdom of Cashmire,
the women have naturally no hair on any part of the body, and the men
have hardly any beard. According to Thevenot, the Mogul women are very
fruitful, though exceedingly chaste, and suffer so little from the
pains of child-birth, that they are often abroad the day following.
He adds, that in the kingdom of Decan they are allowed to marry, the
male by his tenth, and the female by her eighth year; and at that age
they not unoften have children; but the women who become mothers so
soon usually cease bearing before they arrive at 30, and by that period
they appear wrinkled, and marked with all the deformities of age. It is
not an uncommon practice among them to have their skins pricked in the
shape of flowers, and by painting them with the juices of plants, they
perfectly resemble them.
The natives of Bengal are more yellow than the Moguls. In disposition
also they differ totally; their women, instead of being chaste, of all
the Indian women are the most lascivious. In this country they carry
on a great traffic of slaves, male and female. They also make numbers
of eunuchs. They are comely and well-shaped, are fond of commerce, and
have much mildness in their manners.
The natives of the coast of Coromandel are more black than the people
of Bengal; they are also less civilized, and in general go nearly
naked. Those of the coast of Malabar are still more black; their hair
is black also, straight, and long, and are of the same size with
the Europeans. Even in their towns men, women, and children, bathe
promiscuously in public basons. Their women wear rings in their noses;
they are married at the age of eight, and though black, or at least of
a very deep brown, they yet are comely and well proportioned.
The customs of the different Indian nations are all very singular,
if not whimsical. The Banians eat nothing which has had life in it;
they are even afraid to kill the smallest reptile, however offensive
to them; they throw rice and beans into their rivers as food for the
fishes, and grains of different kinds upon the earth for the birds and
insects. When they meet a hunter, or a fisher, they earnestly beg of
him to desist; if deaf to their entreaties, they offer him money for
his gun, or his nets, and when no persuasion nor offer will avail, they
trouble the water to frighten away the fishes, and cry with all their
strength to put the birds and other game to flight.
The Naires of Calicut form a class of nobles, whose sole profession
is that of arms. These men are handsome, and of a comely aspect,
though of an olive colour, and though they lengthen their ears to
such a pitch as to make them fall over their shoulders, and sometimes
lower, they are tall, hardy, courageous, and highly expert in military
exercise. These Naires are allowed no more than one wife, but the
women may have as many husbands as they please. Father Tachard says,
that they sometimes have not fewer than ten, whom they consider as so
many slaves, subjected by their beauty. This privilege is annexed to
nobility, from which the women of condition derive to themselves every
possible advantage. Those of inferior rank are allowed but one husband,
but they comfort themselves under this restraint by the caresses of
strangers, with whom they carry on their illicit amours, in defiance of
their husbands, who dare not even speak to them upon the subject. The
mothers prostitute their daughters in their early infancy. The nobles,
or Naires, seem to be of a race different from the lower order, for
the latter, men as well as women, are more ugly, yellow, unshapely,
and more diminutive. Among the Naires there are some whose legs are as
thick as the body of another man. This deformity they have from their
birth, and not from any particular malady; and nevertheless they are
exceedingly active. This race of men with thick legs have not increased
much either among the Naires or any other classes of Indians; they are,
however, in other places, and especially in Ceylon, where they are said
to be the race of St. Thomas.
The natives of Ceylon are not unlike those of the coast of Malabar.
They are less black, but their ears are as large, and descend as low.
They are of a mild aspect, and naturally nimble, alert, and lively.
Their hair which is very black, the men wear short; the common people
go almost naked; and the women, according to a custom pretty general
in India, have their bosoms uncovered. In Ceylon there is a species
of savages, who are called _Bedas_; they occupy a small district on
the north part of the island, and seem to be of a peculiar race. The
spot they inhabit is entirely covered with wood, amidst which they
conceal themselves so closely that it is with great difficulty they are
discovered. Their complexion is fair, and sometimes red, like that of
the Europeans. Their language has not the smallest affinity to that
of any of the other Indians. They have no villages nor houses, nor
hold any intercourse with the rest of mankind. Their weapons are bows
and arrows, with which they kill a great number of boars, stags, and
other animals; they never dress their meat, but sweeten it with honey,
which they possess in great abundance. We are strangers to the origin
of this tribe, which is far from being numerous, and of which every
family lives separate. It appears that the Bedas of Ceylon, as well
as the Chacrelas of Java, who are both fair and few in number, are of
European extraction. It is possible that some European men and women
might have formerly been deserted in these islands, or thrown upon then
by shipwreck, and that for fear of being maltreated by the natives,
they and their descendants have remained in the woods, and in the
mountainous parts of the country, where, habituated to a savage life,
they might at length consider it as preferable.
It is supposed that the natives of the Maldivia islands are descended
from those of Ceylon, yet they bear no resemblance, the latter being
black and badly formed; the former shapely, and, their olive colour
excepted, little different from the Europeans. Besides they are a
people composed of all nations. Those of the northern parts are more
civilized than those of the southern. The women, notwithstanding their
olive colour are handsome; and some of them are as fair as those of
Europe. Their hair is universally black: this they consider as a
beauty; and they studiously render it of that colour, by keeping the
heads of their boys and girls constantly shaved every eight days till
the age of eight or nine years. Another beauty is to have the hair
very long, and very thick; and for this purpose they anoint their head
and body with a perfumed oil. These islanders love exercise, and are
industrious artists; they are superstitious and greatly addicted to
women; and though the women are particularly cautious of exposing their
bosoms, they are yet exceeding debauched, and lavish of their favours.
The natives of Cambaia are of an ash-colour; and those bordering on
the sea the most swarthy. In their accounts of Guzarat, the Dutch tell
us, that the natives are all of yellow shades; that they are of the
same size as the Europeans; that the women who are rarely exposed to
the sun, are fairer than the men; and that some of them are little
more swarthy than the Portuguese. Mandelslo says, that the people of
Guzarat are all of a colour more or less tawny or olive, according to
the climate in which they are situated; that the men are strong and
shapely, have large faces and black eyes; that the women are small
but well proportioned, that they wear their hair long, also pegs in
their nostrils, and large pendants in their ears. Few of them are
deformed; some have a more clear complexion than others, yet they have
all black straight hair. The ancient inhabitants of Guzarat are easily
distinguished from the others by their colour, which is much more
black, and by their being more stupid and barbarous.
Goa is the chief Portuguese settlement in the Indies, and though it may
have lost much of its former splendor, it is still, however, a rich
and a commercial city. Here, at one time, more slaves were sold than
in any other part of the world; and where the most beautiful women
and girls, from all parts of Asia, became the property of the highest
bidder. These slaves were of all colours, and were skilled in music, as
well as in the arts of sewing and embroidery. The Indians were chiefly
captivated with the Caffre girls from Mosambique, who are all black.
"It is remarkable, says Pyrard, that the sweat of the Indian men or
women has no disagreeable smell; whereas of the negroes of Africa, the
stench, when they are in any degree over-heated, is insupportable. He
adds, that the Indian women are fond of the European men, and that they
prefer them to the white men of the Indies."
The Persians are neighbours to the Moguls, and bear a considerable
likeness to them; those especially who occupy the southern parts of
Persia. The natives of Ormus, and of the provinces of Bascia and
Balascia, are very brown and tawny; those of Chesmur, and the other
provinces, in which the heat is less intense than in Ormus, are more
fair; and those of the northern provinces are tolerably white. The
women who inhabit the islands of the Persian gulph, are, according to
the Dutch travellers, brown or yellow, and not in the least agreeable.
They have several modes and customs similar to those of the Indian
women, as having a hole formed through the cartilage of the nose, for
the admission of a ring, and through the skin of the nose, immediately
below the eyes, for that of a gold wire. Indeed this custom of piercing
the nose, in order to embellish it with rings and other trinkets,
has extended much farther than the gulph of Persia. Many of the women
in Arabia have an incision made through their nostrils for the same
purpose; and with this people it is an act of gallantry for the husband
to salute his wife through those rings, which are sometimes so large as
to encompass the whole mouth.
Xenophon, in speaking of the Persians, says, that they were generally
fat and gross; Marcellinus, on the contrary, says, that in his time
they were meagre and thin. Olearius adds, that they are to this day
what the last mentioned author describes, that they are full of
strength and vigour, and that their complexion is olive-coloured, their
hair black, and their noses aquiline.
That the Persian blood is naturally gross, says Chardin, is evident
from the Guebres, who are a remnant of the ancient Persians, and who
are ugly, ill shaped, and coarse skinned. It is evident also from the
inhabitants of the provinces nearest to India, who, as they never form
any alliances but among each other, are little less deformed than
the Guebres. Throughout the rest of the kingdom the Persian blood
has become highly refined, by intermixtures with the Georgians and
Circassians, two nations the most remarkable for the beauty of the
inhabitants of any in the world. Thus in Persia there is hardly a
man of distinction whose mother came not from Georgia or Circassia;
and even the king himself is commonly, by the mother's side, sprung
from a native of one or other of these countries. As it is many years
since this mixture first took place, the Persian women, though still
inferior in beauty to the Georgian, have become very handsome. The men
are commonly tall, erect, fresh-coloured, and vigorous; their air is
graceful, and their appearance engaging. The mildness of their climate,
and the sobriety in which they are brought up, contribute much to their
personal beauty. This they in no degree inherit from their fathers, for
without the above mixture the men of rank in Persia would be extremely
ugly and deformed, being descendants of the Tartars. The Persians,
on the contrary, are polished and ingenious; their imagination is
lively, quick, and fertile; though fond of arts and sciences, they
are yet ambitious of warlike honours; they are proud and very fond of
praise; have much familiarity in their tempers; they are amorous and
voluptuous, luxuriant, and prodigal, and are alike unacquainted with
economy and commerce.
Though in general tolerably sober, they are immoderate devourers of
fruit; and nothing is more common than to see one man eat twelve pounds
of melons. Some will eat three or four times that quantity, and by
over-indulging their appetite for fruit, numbers lose their lives.
Fine women of every colour are common in Persia, as they are brought
thither by merchants, selected on account of their beauty. The white
women come from Poland, from Muscovy, from Circassia, from Georgia,
and from the frontiers of Great Tartary, the tawny ones from the
territories of the Great Mogul, the kingdom of Golconda and Visapore;
and the black ones from the coast of the Red Sea.
Among the inferior classes of women a strange superstition prevails.
Such as are barren imagine that they have only to pass under the
suspended body of a gibbeted criminal to become fruitful; the influence
of a male corpse, and that even from a distance, will communicate to
them fecundity. When this expedient fails, they go into the canals
which flow from the public baths, when they know a number of men are
bathing. Should the latter supposed specific prove alike ineffectual as
the former, their last resource is to swallow that part of the prepuce
which is cut off in the operation of circumcision; and this they deem a
sovereign remedy against sterility.
The inhabitants of Persia, of Turkey, of Arabia, of Egypt, and of all
Barbary, may be considered as one and the same people, who, in the
time of Mahomet and his successors, invaded immense territories,
extended their dominions, and became exceedingly intermixed with the
original natives of all those countries. The Persians, the Turks, and
the Moors, are to a certain degree civilized; but the Arabs, have for
the most part remained in a state of lawless independence. They live
like the Tartars, without law, without government, and almost without
society: theft, robbery, and violence, are authorized by their chiefs;
they glory in their vices, and pay no respect to virtue; and all
human institutions they despise, excepting such as are founded upon
fanaticism and superstition.
They are inured to labour, and to which they habituate their horses,
allowing them refreshment but once in twenty-four hours. Their
horses are necessarily meagre, but are excellent coursers, and seem
indefatigable.
In general the Arabs live miserably: they have neither bread nor wine,
nor do they take the trouble to cultivate the earth. Instead of bread,
they use wild grain, mixed and kneaded with the milk of their camels,
sheep, and goats. These they conduct in flocks from place to place,
till they find a spot of sufficient herbage for them. On this spot they
erect their tents, and live with their wives and children till the
herbage is consumed, when they decamp and proceed in search of more.
However hard may be their mode of living, and simple their food, yet
the Arabs are robust and stout; they are of a tolerable size and rather
handsome. As the generality of them go naked, or with the slight
covering of a wretched shirt, their skins are much scorched by the heat
of the sun. Those of the coasts of Arabia-Felix, and of the island of
Scotora, are more diminutive; their complexion is either ash-coloured
or tawny; and in form they resemble the Abyssinians.
The Arabs paint their arms, lips, and different parts of their body, of
a deep blue, which they penetrate into the flesh by means of a kind of
needle contrived on purpose, and it can never be effaced. This custom
is also common among the negroes who traffic with the Mahometans. Some
of the young girls among the Arabs paint various devices on their
bodies, of a blue colour, which is done by vitriol on the point of a
lancet, and this they consider as an embellishment to their beauty.
La Boulaye says, that the Arabian women of the Desert paint their
hands, lips, and chin, of a blue colour; that in their noses they
mostly have gold or silver rings, of three inches in diameter;
that though born fair, they yet lose all their complexion by being
constantly exposed to the sun; that the young girls are very agreeable,
and immoderately fond of singing; that their songs are not melancholy
and plaintive like those of the Turks and Persians, but more strange,
they raise their voices as much as possible, and articulate with
prodigious velocity.
"The Arabian princesses and ladies," says another traveller, "are very
beautiful, and being always sheltered from the sun, are very fair. The
women of the inferior classes are not only naturally tawny, but are
rendered much more so by the sun, and are of a disagreeable figure.
They prick their lips with needles, and cover them with gunpowder,
mixed with ox-gall, by which the lips are rendered blue and livid ever
after. In like manner they prick the cheeks, and each side of the mouth
and chin. They draw a line of black along the eye-lids, as also on
the outward corner of each eye, that it may appear more expanded, for
large and prominent eyes are considered the principal beauty of the
Eastern women. To express the beauty of women, the Arabs say, "She has
the eyes of the antelope." To this animal they always compare their
mistresses; and black eyes, or the eyes of the antelope, never fail to
be the burden of their love songs. Than the antelope nothing can be
more beautiful; and it particularly discovers a certain innocent fear,
which bears a strong resemblance to the natural modesty and timidity
of a young woman. The ladies, and women newly married, blacken the
eye-brows, and make them unite on the middle of their forehead; they
also prick their arms and hands, and form upon them figures of animals,
flowers, &c. They also paint their nails of a reddish colour. The men
paint the tails of their horses with this colour. The women wear rings
in their ears, and bracelets upon their arms and legs."
To this account it may be added, that the Arabs are all jealous of
their wives, and that, whether they obtain them by purchase or carry
them away by force, they treat them with, mildness and even with
respect.
The Egyptians, though they live so near the Arabians, have the same
religion, and are governed by the same laws, yet they are very
different in their manners and customs. In all the towns and villages
along the Nile, for example, we meet with girls set apart for the
embraces of travellers, without any obligation to pay for such
indulgence. For this purpose they have houses always full of these
girls; and when a rich man finds himself dying, as an act of pious
charity he disburses a sum of money to provide damsels and an edifice
of this kind. When any of these girls have a male child, the mother
is obliged to rear him till the age of three or four, after which she
carries him to the patron of the house, or his heir, who employs him as
one of his slaves. The girls, however, remain with the mother, and when
of a proper age they supply her place.
The Egyptian women are very brown, their eyes ate lively, their
stature rather low, their mode of dress by no means agreeable, and
their conversation very tiresome. They are remarkable for bearing a
number of children; and some travellers pretend, that the fertility
occasioned by the inundation of the Nile is not confined to the earth,
but to the human and animal creation. They add, that by drinking of the
Nile, or by bathing in it, the first two months after its overflow,
which are those of July and August, the women generally conceive; that
in April and May they are as generally delivered, and that cows almost
always bring forth two calves, a ewe two lambs, &c.
To reconcile this benign influence of the Nile with the troublesome
disorders occasioned by it would be difficult. Granger says, that in
Egypt the air is unwholesome; that the eyes are peculiarly subject
to diseases so inveterate, that many lose their sight; that in this
country there are more blind people than in any other; and that
during the increase of the Nile the generality of the inhabitants are
afflicted with obstinate dysenteries, occasioned by the water being
then strongly impregnated with saline particles.
Though the women of Egypt are commonly small, yet the men are of a good
height. Both, generally speaking, are of an olive colour, and the more
we remove from Cairo the more tawny we find the natives, till we come
to the confines of Nubia, where they are nearly as black as the Nubians
themselves.
The greatest defects of the Egyptians are, idleness and cowardice. They
do nothing the whole day but drink coffee, smoke tobacco, sleep, or
chatter in the streets. They are extremely ignorant, yet are full of
the most ridiculous vanity. Though they cannot deny they have lost that
nobleness they once possessed, their skill in sciences and in arms,
their history, and even their language; and that from an illustrious
nation they have degenerated into a people dastardly and enslaved, they
yet scruple not to despise all other nations, and to take offence at
advising them to send their children to Europe, to acquire a knowledge
of the arts and sciences.
Of a distinct origin are the numerous natives that inhabit the coasts
of the Mediterranean, between Egypt and the western ocean, as well
as the extensive territories from Barbary to Mount Atlas. The Arabs,
Vandals, Spaniards, and, more anciently, the Romans and the Egyptians,
peopled these regions with men very different from each other. The
inhabitants of the mountains of Arras, for example, have an aspect and
complexion very different from those of their neighbours; their skin,
far from being tawny, is fair and ruddy; and their hair is of a deep
yellow, while that of the adjacent nations is black; circumstances
which have led Dr. Shaw to suppose them the descendants of the Vandals,
who, on their expulsion, might have settled in some parts of these
mountains.
The women of the kingdom of Tripoli, though so near to those of Egypt,
have yet no resemblance to them. The former are tall; and they even
consider length of stature as an essential article of beauty. Like the
Arabian women they mark their cheeks and chin; and as in Turkey they
so highly esteem red hair, they even paint that of their children with
vermilion.
In general the Moorish women affect to wear their hair down to their
heels, and those whose hair is less in length, use false locks; and
they all adorn their tresses with ribbons. The hair of the eye-lids
they tinge with the dust of black lead; and the dark colour which this
gives to the eyes they esteem a singular beauty. In this circumstance,
indeed they differ not from the women of ancient Greece and Rome.
Most part of the Moorish women would pass for handsome even in Europe.
The skin of their children is exceedingly fair and delicate; and
though the boys, by being exposed to the sun, soon grow swarthy, yet
the girls, who are kept more at home, retain their beauty till the age
of 30, when they commonly cease to have children. At this premature
sterility they have less cause to repine, as they are often mothers at
the age of 11, and grandmothers at that of 22; and living as long as
European women, they commonly see several generations.
In reading Marmol's description of these different nations, it is
evident that the inhabitants of the mountains of Barbary are fair, and
those of the sea-coasts and plains are very brown and tawny. He says
expressly, that the inhabitants of Capex, a city of Tunis, are poor
people exceedingly black; that those who dwell on the river Dara, in
the kingdom of Morocco, are very tawny; and that the inhabitants of
Zarhou, and of the mountains of Fez, on the side of Mount Atlas, are
white. He adds, that the latter are so little affected by cold, that
even in frost and snow their dress is very slight; and through the
whole year they go with the head uncovered. The Numidians, he says, are
rather tawny than black; the women are tolerably fair, and even lusty,
though the men are meagre; but that the inhabitants of Guaden, at the
extremity of Numidia, and on the frontiers of Senegal, are rather black
that tawny; that, on the other hand, in the province of Dara, the women
are beautiful and fresh-coloured; and that throughout the whole regions
negro-slaves of both sexes are numerous.
The difference then is not great among the nations that dwell between
the 20th, 30th, or 35th degree north latitude, in the old continent;
that is, from the Mogul empire to Barbary, and even from the Ganges to
the western coasts of Morocco, if we except the varieties occasioned
by the mixture with more northern nations, by which some of these vast
countries have been conquered and peopled. In this territory, the
extent of which is not less than 2000 leagues, the inhabitants are in
general brown and tawny, yet well made, and tolerably handsome.
If we next examine those who live in climates more temperate we shall
find that the people northward of Mogul and Persia, the Armenians,
Turks, Georgians, Mingrelians Circassians, Greeks, and the Europeans at
large, are the most fair and handsome in the world; and that however
remote Cashmire may be from Spain, or Circassia from France, yet
situated nearly at the same distance from the equator, the resemblance
between the natives is singularly striking.
The people of Cashmire, says Bernier, are celebrated for beauty; they
are as well made as the Europeans; they have nothing of the Tartar
visages; nor have they that flat nose, and those pig's eyes we met with
among their neighbours. The women are particularly handsome; and it is
very common for strangers, on coming to the court of Mogul, to provide
themselves with wives from Cashmire, in order to have children that may
pass for true Moguls.
The natives of Georgia are of a more refined extraction than those of
Cashmire. In the whole of that country we find not an ugly face; and
the women enjoy from Nature graces superior to those of any other race.
They are tall and well-shaped; their waist is exceedingly delicate,
and their faces are truly charming. The men are also very handsome;
and, from their natural ingenuity, were it not counteracted by a
wretched education, which renders them ignorant and vicious, they might
successfully cultivate the arts and sciences. In no country whatever,
perhaps, are libertinism and drunkenness carried to so great a pitch as
in Georgia. Chardin says, that even the clergy are exceedingly addicted
to wine; that, in the character of slaves, they retain a number
of concubines, and that at this custom, as being general and even
authorised, no person takes offence. He adds, that the prefect of the
Capuchins assured him, that the Patriarch of Georgia publicly declares,
that he who, at the grand festivals, as those of Easter and Christmas,
does not get drunk, is unworthy to be called a Christian, and ought to
be excommunicated. With all their vices the Georgians are a civil and
humane people, little subject to passion, but irreconcileable enemies
when provoked, and have conceived an antipathy.
"The women of Circassia," says Struys, "are also exceedingly fair and
beautiful. Their complexion has the finest tints, their forehead is
large and smooth, and, without the aid of art, their eye-brows are so
delicate, that they appear as curved threads of silk. Their eyes are
large, expressive, and full of fire; their noses finely shaped, and
their lips perfect vermilion; their mouths are small, and constantly
expressive of smiles, and their chins form the termination of a perfect
oval. Their necks and breasts are admirably formed; their stature is
tall, and the shape of their body easy; their skin is white as snow,
and their hair of the most beautiful black. They wear a little black
stuff cap, over which is fastened a roller of the same colour; but,
what is truly ridiculous, the widows, instead of this roller, wear
the bladder of an ox, or a cow, blown out as much as possible, which
disfigures them amazingly. In summer the inferior classes wear nothing
but a shift, which is open down to the middle, and is generally blue,
yellow, or red. Though tolerably familiar with strangers, they are
faithful to their husbands, who are by no means jealous of them."
Tavernier says also, that the women of Comania and Circassia are, like
those of Georgia, very shapely and beautiful; that they retain the
freshness of their complexion till the age of 45 or 50; that they are
all very industrious, and often employed in the most servile offices.
In marriage these people possess an uncommon degree of liberty. If the
husband is not contented with his wife, and he makes his complaint
first, the lord of the district sends for the wife, orders her to be
sold, and provides the husband with another. If the woman complains
first, her husband is taken from her, and she is left at her freedom.
The Mingrelians are said to be as beautiful, and as well shaped as
the Georgians or Circassians; and, indeed, they all seem to be of the
same race. The women of Mingrelia, says Chardin, are very handsome,
have a majestic air, their faces and forms are admirable, and have
a look so engaging as to attract every beholder. Those who are less
handsome, or advanced in years, daub their eye-brows, cheeks, forehead,
nose, and chin, with paint; the rest only paint the eye-brows. They
bestow every possible attention to their dress, which is similar to
that of the Persians. They are lively, civil, and obliging, yet full
of perfidy, and there is no wickedness they will not put in practice,
in order to obtain, to preserve, or get rid of a lover. The men have
likewise many bad qualities. They are all bred up to thievery, which
they make a business and amusement. With infinite satisfaction do
they relate the different depredations they have committed, for which
they are extolled, and derive their greatest glory. In Mingrelia,
falsehood, robbery, and murder, they call good actions; whoredom,
bigamy, and incest, virtuous habits. The husbands are little disturbed
with jealousy; and when he detects his wife in the actual embraces of
her gallant, he has only a right to demand a pig from him, which is
his only atonement, his only revenge; and the pig they generally eat
between them. They pretend it is a very good and laudable custom to
have a number of wives and concubines, because they can have a greater
increase of children, whom they can sell for gold, or exchange for
goods or provisions. The Mingrelian slaves are not very dear. A man
from the age of 25 to 40 is purchased for 15 crowns, and if older for
eight or ten, a handsome girl, from 13 to 18 for 20 crowns; a woman for
12 crowns; and a child for three or four.
The Turks, who purchase a vast number of these slaves, are so
intermixed with Armenians, Georgians, Turcomans, Arabs, Egyptians,
and even Europeans, it is hardly possible to distinguish the real
natives of Asia Minor, Syria, and the rest of Turkey. The Turkish men
are generally robust, and tolerably well made, and it is rare to find a
deformed person among them. The women are also commonly beautiful, and
free from blemishes; they are very fair, because they seldom stir from
home, and never without being veiled.
According to Belon, there is not a woman in Asia whose complexion is
not fresh as a rose, whose skin is not fair, delicate, and smooth as
velvet. Of the earth of China, diluted, they form a kind of ointment,
with which they rub all over their bodies before they bathe. Some
likewise paint their eye-brows black, while others eradicate the hairs
with rusma, and paint themselves eye-brows in the form of a cresent,
which are beautiful when viewed at a distance, but quite the reverse
when examined more closely. This custom is very ancient. Among the
Turks, he adds, neither men nor women wear hair on any part of the
body, the head and chin excepted; that they use rusma mixed with quick
lime, and diluted in water, which they apply before they go into the
warm bath, and so soon as they begin to sweat in thus bathing the
hair rubs off with the hand, and the skin remains soft and smooth,
as if there had never been any upon it. He remarks further, that in
Egypt there is a shrub called _Alcanna_, the leaves of which dried and
powdered make a reddish yellow colour, which the women of Turkey use
to colour their hair, hands, and feet. With this they also tinge the
hair of their infants, and the manes of their horses. The Turkish women
employ every art to add to their beauty, as do also the Persian, but
the articles they use are different, as the men of the former prefer
red, and those of the latter brown complexions.
It has been pretended that the Jews, who came originally from Syria,
and Palestine, have the same brown complexion they had formerly. As
Misson, however, justly observes, the Jews of Portugal alone are tawny.
As they always marry with their own tribe, the complexion of the
parents is transmitted to the child, and thus with little diminution
preserved, even in the northern countries. The German Jews, those of
Prague, for example, are not more swarthy than the other Germans.
The present natives of Judea resemble the other Turks, being only a
little more brown than those of Constantinople, or on the coasts of
the Black Sea, in like manner as the Arabians are more brown than the
Syrians, from their situation being more southern.
It is the same with the Greeks. Those of the northern parts are more
fair, while those of the southern islands, or provinces, are brown.
Generally speaking, the Greek women are more handsome and vivacious
than the Turks; they also enjoy a greater degree of liberty. Carreri
says, the women of the island of Chio are fair, handsome, lively,
and very familiar with the men; that the girls see strangers without
restraint; and that they all have their necks uncovered. He likewise
says, that the Greek women have the finest hair in the world,
especially in the vicinage of Constantinople; but that those whose hair
descends to the heels, have features less regular.
The Greeks consider large eyes, and elevated eye-brows, as a very
great beauty in either sex; and we may remark in all busts and medals
of ancient Greeks, the eyes are much larger than those of the ancient
Romans.
The inhabitants of the Archipelago are excellent swimmers and divers.
According to Thevenot, they are trained to the practice of bringing
up goods which have been sunk into the sea; and that in the island of
Samos, a young man has no chance of obtaining a wife, unless he can
dive eight, and Dapper says twenty, fathoms. The latter adds, that
in some of the islands, as in Nicaria, they have a strange custom
of speaking to each other at a distance, and that their voices are
so strong, that when a quarter of a league, nay even a whole league
asunder, they maintain a conversation, though not without long
intervals, as after a question is asked, the answer does not arrive for
several seconds.
The Greeks, Neapolitans, Sicilians, Corsicans, Sardinians, and
Spaniards, being situated nearly under the same line, are uniform in
point of complexion. Those people are more swarthy than the English,
French, Germans, Polanders, Moldavians, Circassians, and all the other
inhabitants of the north of Europe, till we advance to Lapland; where,
as already observed, we find another race of men. In travelling through
Spain, we begin to perceive a difference of colour even at Bayonne.
There the women have a complexion more brown, and eyes more brilliant.
The Spaniards are meagre, rather short, yet handsome. They are yellow
and swarthy; but their eyes are beautiful, their teeth well ranged, and
their features are regular. Their children are born fair and handsome;
but as they grow up their complexion changes surprisingly; the air and
sun render them yellow and tawny; nor is it difficult to distinguish
a Spaniard from a native of any other country in Europe. In some
provinces of Spain, as in the environs of the river Bidassoa, it is
remarked, the inhabitants have ears of an immoderate size.
Black or brown hair begins to be rather unfrequent in England,
Flanders, Holland, and in the northern provinces of Germany; nor is it
hardly to be seen in Denmark, Sweden, or Roland. According to Linnæus,
the Goths are tail, their hair smooth and white as silver, and the iris
of their eye is bluish. The Finlanders are muscular and fleshy; the
hair long, and of a yellowish white, and the iris of the eye is of a
deep yellow.
In Sweden the women are exceedingly fruitful. Rudbeck says, that they
commonly bear 8, 10, or 12 children, and not unoften 18, 20, 24, 28,
and even 30. He adds, that the men often live to the age of 100, some
to that of 140; that one Swede lived to 156 years, and another to 161.
This author is an enthusiast with regard to his country, and according
to him, Sweden is the first country in the world. This fertility in the
women does not imply a greater propensity to love. In cold climates the
inhabitants are far more chaste than in warm; and though they produce
more children in Sweden, the women are less amorous than those of
Spain or Portugal. It is universally known, that the northern nations
have to so great a degree overrun all Europe, that historians have
distinguished the north by the appellation of _Officina Gentium_.
The author of the "Voyages Historiques de l'Europe," agrees with
Rudbeck, that there are more instances of longevity in Sweden, than in
any other European nation; and that he saw several persons who, he was
assured, had passed the age of 150. This longevity he attributes to the
salubrity of their climate; and of the people of Denmark he makes the
same remark; the Danes, he adds, are tall, robust, and of a lively and
florid complexion; that the women are likewise very fair, well made,
and exceedingly prolific.
Before the reign of Czar Peter I. we are told, the Muscovites had not
emerged from barbarism. Born in slavery, they were ignorant, brutal,
cruel, without courage and without manners. Men and women bathed
promiscuously in stoves heated to a degree intolerable to all persons
but themselves; and on quitting this warm bath they plunged, like the
Laplanders, into cold water. Their food was homely; and their favourite
dishes were cucumbers or melons, brought from Astracan, which in summer
they preserved in a mixture of water, flour, and salt. From ridiculous
scruples they refrained from the use of several meats, particularly
pigeons and veal. Yet even at this period of unrefinement, the women
were skilled in the arts of colouring their checks, plucking out their
eye-brows, and painting artificial ones. They also adorned themselves
with pearls and jewels, and their garments were made of rich and
valuable stuffs. From these circumstances does it not appear, that the
barbarism of the Muscovites was near a close, and that their sovereign
had less trouble in polishing them than some authors have endeavoured
to insinuate? They are now a people civilized, commercial, studious Of
the arts and sciences, fond of spectacles, and ingenious novelties.
Some authors have said that the air of Muscovy is so salutary, as to
prevent its being visited with a pestilence. In the annals of the
country, however, it is recorded, that in the year 1741, and during the
six subsequent years, the Muscovites were dreadfully afflicted with
a contagious distemper, insomuch that even the constitution of their
descendants has been altered by it; few of the inhabitants attaining
now the age of an 100, whereas before that period numbers lived much
beyond it.
The Ingrians and Carelians, who inhabit the northern provinces of
Muscovy, and are the original natives of the country round Petersburgh,
are men of vigour and robust constitutions. Their complexion is
generally fair; they resemble the Finlanders, and speak the same
language, which has no affinity to that of any other European nation.
By this historical description of all the different inhabitants of
Europe and Asia, it appears that the variation in their colour depends
greatly, though not entirely, on the climates. There are many other
causes, by which not only the colour, but even the form and features
may be influenced; and among the principal may be reckoned the
nature of the food, and the manners, or mode of living. A civilized
people, who enjoy a life of ease and tranquillity, and who, by the
superintendance of a well regulated government, are protected from
the fear and oppression of misery, will, from these reasons alone, be
more handsome and vigorous than those of a savage and careless nation,
of which each individual, deriving no assistance from society, is
obliged to provide for his own subsistence, to sustain alternately
the excesses of hunger and the effects of unwholesome food; to be
alternately exhausted with labour and lassitude; and to undergo the
rigours of a severe climate, without being able to shelter himself from
them; to act, in a word, more frequently like an animal than a man.
In the supposition that two nations, thus differently circumstanced,
were even to live in the same climate, there can be no doubt but that
the savage people would be more ugly, tawny, diminutive, and more
wrinkled, than those enjoying civilized society. Should the former
possess any advantage, it would consist in the superior strength, or
rather hardiness of the body. It might likewise happen that among the
savage people there would be fewer instances of lameness or bodily
deformities; for in a civilized state, where one individual contributes
to the support of another, where the strong has no power over the weak,
where the qualities of the body are less esteemed than those of the
mind, men thus defective live and even multiply; but among a savage
people, as each individual subsists and defends himself merely by his
corporal strength and address, those who are unhappily born weak and
defective, or who become sick or disabled, soon cease to form a part of
their number.
We must then admit of three causes as jointly productive of the
varieties which we have remarked in the different nations of the earth.
First, the influence of the climate; secondly, the food; and thirdly,
the manners; the two last having great dependence on the former. But
before we lay down the reasons on which this opinion is founded, it
is necessary to describe the people of Africa and America in the same
manner as we have those of Europe and Asia.
The nations of the whole northern part of Africa, from the
Mediterranean to the Tropic, we have already mentioned. All those
beyond the Tropic, from the Red Sea to the Ocean, an extent of 100
or 150 leagues, are of the Moorish species, though so tawny that
they appear almost black. The women are rather fairer than the men,
and tolerably handsome. Among these Moors there is a vast number of
mulattoes, who are of a black still more deep, their mothers being
negro women, whom the Moors purchase, and by whom they have a number of
children.