find the negroes of Senegal and Nubia, both on the coast of the western
ocean and that of the Red Sea; and after them all the other nations of
Africa, from the 18th degree north to the 18th degree south latitude,
are perfectly black, the Ethiopians or Abyssinians excepted. The
portion of the globe by Nature allotted to this race of men, therefore,
contains an extent of ground, parallel to the equator, of about 900
leagues in breadth, and considerably more in length, especially
northward of the equinoctial line. Beyond the 18th or 20th degree of
south latitude the natives are no longer negroes, as will appear when
we come to speak of the Caffres and Hottentots.
By confounding the Ethiopians with their neighbours the Nubians, who
are nevertheless of a different race, we have been long in an error
with respect to their colour and features. Marmol says, the Ethiopians
are absolutely black, that they have large faces and flat noses, and in
this description the Dutch travellers agree. The truth, however, is,
that they differ from the Nubians both in colour and features. The skin
of the Ethiopians is brown or olive-coloured, like that of the southern
Arabs, from whom probably they derive their origin. They are tall, have
regular features, strongly marked; their eyes are large and beautiful;
their noses well proportioned; their lips thin, and their teeth white.
The Nubians, on the contrary, have flat noses, thick and prominent
lips, and their faces exceedingly black. These Nubians, as well as
the Barberins, their western neighbours, are a species of negroes not
unlike those of Senegal.
The Ethiopians are a people between barbarism and civilization. Their
garments are of cotton or silk. Their houses are low, and of a bad
construction; their lands are wretchedly neglected, owing to their
nobles, who despise, maltreat, and plunder the citizens and common
people. Each of these classes live separate from the other, and have
their own villages or hamlets. Unprovided with salt, they purchase it
for its weight in gold. So fond are they of raw meat that, at their
feasts, the second course, which they consider as the most delicate,
consists of flesh entirely so. Though they have vines they make
no wine; and their usual beverage is a sour composition made with
tamarinds. They use horses for travelling, and mules for carrying
their merchandize. Of the arts or sciences they have little knowledge;
their language is without rules; and their manner of writing, though
their characters are more beautiful than those of the Arabians, is so
imperfect, that, to write an epistle, they require several days. Their
mode of salutation is something whimsical. Each takes the right hand of
the other, and carries it to his mouth; this done, the saluter takes
off the scarf of the person saluted, and fastens it round his own body,
by which the latter is left half naked, few of the Ethiopians wearing
any thing more than this scarf and a pair of cotton drawers.
In Admiral Drake's voyage round the world, he mentions a fact, which,
however, extraordinary, appears not incredible. He says that on the
frontiers of the deserts of Ethiopia there is a people called the
_Acridophagi_, or _Locust-eaters_, who are black, meagre, exceedingly
nimble, and very small. In the spring, by certain hot and westerly
winds, an infinite number of locusts are blown into that country,
on which, as they are unprovided with cattle or with fish, they are
reduced to the necessity of subsisting. After collecting them in large
quantities they salt them, and keep them for food throughout the year.
This wretched nourishment produces singular effects: they hardly live
to the age of 40, and when they approach that age winged insects
engender under their skin, which at first creates a violent itching,
and shortly multiply so prodigiously, that their whole flesh swarms
with them. They begin by eating through the belly, then the breast,
and continue their ravages till they eat all the flesh from the bones.
Thus, by devouring insects are these men devoured by them in turn.
Were this fact well authenticated it would afford a large field for
reflection.
There are vast deserts in Ethiopia, as well as in that tract of land
which extends to Cape Gardafu. This country, which may be considered as
the eastern part of Ethiopia, is almost entirely uninhabited. To the
south, Ethiopia is bounded by the Bediouns, and a few other nations
who follow the law of Mahomet; a circumstance which corroborates the
supposition, that the Ethiopians are of Arabian extraction; indeed they
are only separated by the strait of Babel-Mandel; and therefore it is
probable, that the Arabians had formerly invaded Ethiopia, and driven
the natives northward into Nubia.
The Arabians have even extended themselves along the coast of Melinda,
of which the inhabitants are of the Mahometan religion, and only
a tawny complexion, The natives of Zanguebar, are not black; they
generally speak Arabic, and their garments are made of cotton. This
country, though under the torrid zone, is not excessively hot; and yet
the hair of the natives is black and frizly like that of the Negroes.
We find, on the whole of this coast, as well as at Mosambique and
Madagascar, some white men, who, it is pretended came originally from
China, and settled there, in the time that the Chinese navigated all
the Eastern seas, in the same manner as they are now navigated by the
Europeans. Whatever foundation there may be for this opinion, it is
certain that the natives of this oriental coast of Africa are black,
and that the tawny or white men we find there, have come from other
countries. But, to form a just idea of the differences among these
black nations, we should examine them more minutely.
In the first place, it is evident, from comparing the descriptions
given by travellers, that there is as much variety in the race of
blacks as in that of the whites; and that, like the latter, the former
have their Tartars and their Circassians. Those of Guinea are extremely
ugly, and have an insufferable stench; those of Sofala, and Mosambique,
are handsome, and have no bad smell. It is necessary, then, to divide
the blacks into different races; and in my opinion, they may be reduced
to two principal ones, that of the Negroes, and that of the Caffres.
In the first I comprehend the blacks of Nubia, Senegal, Cape de Verd,
Gambia, Sierra-Leone, the Teeth and Gold Coasts, of the coast of Juda,
Benin, Gabon, Loango, Congo, Angola, and of Benguela, till we come to
Cape-Negro. In the second I place the inhabitants beyond Cape-Negro to
the point of Africa, where they assume the name of Hottentots; as also
all those of the eastern coast of Africa, such as those of the land
of Natal, Sofala, Monomotapa, Mosambique, and of Melinda; the blacks
of Madagascar, and the neighbouring islands, are likewise Caffres and
not Negroes. These two races of black men resemble each other more in
colour than in their features, hair, skin, or smell. In their manners
and disposition there is also a prodigious difference.
When we come particularly to examine the different people of which
these races are composed, we shall perceive as many varieties among the
blacks as the whites; and all the shades from brown to black, as we
have already remarked from brown to fair in the white races.
Let us begin, then, with the countries northward of Senegal, and,
in proceeding along the coasts, take a view of all the different
tribes which travellers have discovered and described. In the first
place it is certain that the natives of the Canary islands are not
Negroes; since from authentic information it appears, that the ancient
inhabitants were tall, well-made, and of a becoming complexion; that
the women were handsome, and had remarkable fine hair; and that those
who occupied the southern parts were more of an olive colour than those
in the northern. In the relation of his voyage to Lima, Duret remarks,
that the ancient inhabitants of the island of Teneriffe were tall and
vigorous, though meagre and tawny, and that most of them had flat
noses. Excepting the flat nose, therefore, these people had nothing in
common with the Negroes. The natives of Africa in the same latitude
with these islands, are Moors, and very tawny, but who belong, as well
as the islanders, to the race of whites.
The inhabitants of Cape-Blanc are Moors, who follow the law of Mahomet,
and who wander about, like the Arabians, in quest of pasture for their
horses, camels, oxen, goats, and sheep. The Negroes, with whom they
traffic, give them eight or ten slaves for a horse, and two or three
for a camel. It is from these Moors, that we procure gum-arabic, which
they dissolve in their milk. They scarcely ever eat any meat, and
never destroy their cattle, unless dying of sickness, or old age.
The Moors are separated from the Negroes by the river Senegal; they
live on the north-side, and are only tawny; but the Negroes who reside
on the south, are absolutely black. The Moors lead an erratic life,
while the Negroes occupy villages; the former are free and independent;
the latter have tyrants who hold them in slavery; the Moors are short,
meagre, of a disagreeable aspect, but ingenious and subtle; the
Negroes are tall, bulky, and well made, but simple and stupid. The
country inhabited by Moors is sandy and sterile, where verdue is to
be seen in a very few places; that inhabited by the Negroes, is rich,
abounding in pasturage, in millet, and in trees always green, though
few bear any fruit fit for food.
In some places both to the north and south of the river we find a
species of men called _Foulies_, who seem to form a shade between the
Moors and Negroes, and whom, it is possible, are Mulattoes produced
by a coalition of the two nations. These _Foulies_ are not black like
the Negroes, yet darker than the Moors; they are also more civilized
than the former; they follow the laws of Mahomet, and are hospitable to
strangers.
The islands of Cape de Verd are peopled with Mulattoes, descended
from the Portuguese, who first settled there, and the original
Negro-inhabitants. They are called _copper-coloured_ Negroes, because,
though they resemble the Negroes in their features, they are yet more
of a yellow than black; they are well-made, ingenious, but intolerably
indolent. By hunting and fishing they chiefly subsist, and they
train up their dogs to hunt the wild goats. They freely resign their
wives and daughters to the embraces of strangers for the smallest
consideration. For pins and other trifles they will exchange parrots,
porcelain shells, ambergris, &c.
The first Negroes we meet with are those on the south of the Senegal.
These people, as well as those who occupy the different territories
between this river and that of Gambia, are called _Jaloffs_. They are
tall, very black, well proportioned, and their features are less harsh
than those of the other Negroes; some of them, especially among the
females, have features far from being irregular. They have the same
ideas of beauty as the Europeans, considering fine eyes, a well formed
nose, small mouth, and thin lips, as essential ingredients; in the
ground of the picture alone do they differ from us; for, with them,
the colour must be exceedingly black and glossy to render it complete;
Their skin is soft and delicate, and, colour alone excepted, we find
among them, women as handsome as in any other country of the world,
they are usually very gay, lively, and amorous. They are very fond of
white men whom they exert every assiduity to please, both to gratify
themselves, and to obtain presents which may flatter their vanity. To
their predilection for strangers the husbands make not the smallest
opposition, (to whom indeed, they not only make a free offer of their
wives, daughters, or sisters, but even construe it into a dishonour,
if that offer is rejected) but undergo all the violent effects of
jealousy, if they detect them with any of their own nation. These women
are never without a pipe in their mouths, and their skin, when they
undergo any extraordinary heat, has a disagreeable smell, though by
no means so strong as that of other negroes. They are highly fond of
leaping and dancing to the sound of a calabash, drum, or kettle; and
all the movements of their dances are so many lascivious or indecent
postures. They frequently bathe; and to render their teeth even, they
polish them with files. The generality of the young women have figures
of animals, flowers, &c. marked upon their skin.
While at work, or travelling, the Negro-women almost always carry
their infants on their backs. To this custom some travellers ascribe
the flat nose and big bellies among Negroes; since the mother, from
necessarily giving sudden jerks, is apt to strike the nose of the child
against her back; who, in order to avoid the blow, keeps its head back
by pushing the belly forward. Their hair is black and woolly. In hair
and in complexion, consists their principal difference from the rest of
mankind; and, perhaps, there is a stronger resemblance between their
features and those of the Europeans, than between the visage of a
Tartar and that of a Frenchman.
Father du Tertre says expressly, that, if most negroes are flat-nosed,
it is because the parents crush the noses of their children; that
they also compress their lips, to render them thick; and that those
who escape these operations their features are as comely as those of
the Europeans. This remark, however, applies only to the negroes of
Senegal, who, of all others, are the most beautiful. Among all other
negroes, thick lips, broad and flat noses, appear formed as gifts by
nature; and which are by them considered so much as beauties that
every art is used upon the children who, at their birth, discover a
deficiency in those ornaments.
The Negro women are very fruitful; in child-birth they experience
little difficulty, and require not the smallest assistance; nor of its
effects do they feel any consequence beyond the second day. As nurses
and mothers they deserve great encomiums, being exceedingly tender of
their children. They are more ingenious and alert than the men, and
they even study to acquire the virtues of discretion and temperance.
Father Jaric says, that to habituate themselves to eat and speak
little, the Jaloff negro women put water into their mouths in the
morning, and keep it there till the hour allotted for the first meal
arrives.
The negroes of the island of Goree, and of the Cape de Verd coast, are,
like those of Senegal, well made, and very black. So highly do they
prize their colour, which is also glossy, that they despise those
who are not the same as much as white men despise the tawny. They are
strong and robust, but indolent and slothful, and cultivate neither
corn, wine, nor fruit. Rarely do they eat meat; fish and millet are
their chief sustenance. They eat no herbs, and because Europeans do,
they compare them to horses. Of spirituous liquors they are fond to
an excess, and for which they will sell their relations, children,
and even themselves. They go almost naked, wearing only a small piece
of calico, which descends from the waist to the middle of the thigh,
and which, they say, is all that the heat of their climate will allow
them to wear. Notwithstanding their poverty, and wretchedness of food,
they are contented and cheerful. They also think their country is the
finest in the world, and that, because they are the blackest, they are
the most beautiful of men; and were it not that their women discover a
fondness for white men they would deem them unworthy of their notice.
Though the negroes of Sierra Leona are less black than those of
Senegal, they are not, however, as Struys asserts, of a reddish colour.
The custom prevalent among them, as well as among the negroes of
Guinea, of painting their bodies with red, and other colours, possibly
misled that author. Among the latter the women are more debauched than
at Senegal; prodigious numbers of them are common prostitutes, from
which they incur not the smallest disgrace. Both sexes go with their
heads uncovered, and their hair, which is very short, they shave or cut
in various forms. In their ears they wear pendants, which weigh three
or four ounces, made of teeth, horns, shells, wood, &c. Some have the
upper lip, or nostrils, pierced, for the same purpose. They wear a kind
of apron made of apes' skins and the bark of trees. They eat fish and
flesh, but yams and bananas are their chief food. They have no passions
but for women, and no inclinations but to remain idle and inactive.
They live in wretched huts, frequently situated on dreary wilds, though
in the neighbourhood of fertile and delightful spots. The roads from
one place to another are commonly twice as long as they need be; they
never attempt to curtail them, and even when told how in half the
time they may reach any particular spot, they persist in mechanically
following the beaten path. They never measure time, nor have the
smallest idea of its value.
Though the negroes of Guinea are generally healthy, they seldom attain
old age. A negro, at the age of 50, is a very old man. This contracted
period of existence may, with great probability, be imputed to the
premature intercourse between the sexes. The boys, in their tenderest
years, are permitted to pursue every debauchery; and as for the girls,
nothing in the whole country is so rare as to find one who remembers
the period at which she ceased to be a virgin.
The inhabitants of the island of St. Thomas, of Annobona, &c. are
negroes, similar to those of the neighbouring continent. Dispersed,
however, by the Europeans, they are few in number, and those subjected
to the bondage of their invaders. Both sexes, the covering of a kind of
short apron excepted, go naked. Mandelslo says, that the Europeans, who
settle on the island of St. Thomas, which is but one degree and a half
from the equator, retain their white colour till the third generation;
and he seems to insinuate that they afterwards become black: but that
this change should be so suddenly effected seems by no means probable.
The negroes of the coasts of Juda and Arada are less black than those
of Senegal, Guinea, and Congo. So fond are they of the flesh of
dogs that they prefer it to all other viands; and, at their feasts,
a roasted dog is always the first dish presented. This predilection
for dog's-flesh is not peculiar to the Negroes, but common among the
Tartars and savages of North America. The former, in some places,
castrate their dogs, in order to make them fat, and more palatable.
According to Pigafetta, and Drake, who seems to have literally copied
him, the negroes of Congo are black, though in a less degree than those
of Senegal. Of the generality the hair is black and frizly, though of
some it is red. They are of a middle stature; their eyes are either
brown or of a sea-green colour; their lips are not so thick as those
of the other negroes, and their features are not unlike those of the
Europeans.
In some of the provinces of Congo the customs are truly singular. When,
for example a person dies at Loango, they place the body upon a kind
of amphitheatre, about six feet high, in a sitting posture, with the
hands resting upon the knees; they deck it out in the most ornamental
dress, and then light up fires before and behind it: as the clothes
absorb the moisture they cover it with fresh ones, until the corpse is
thoroughly dried, when, with much funeral ceremony they commit it to
the earth. In the province of Malimba the husband is ennobled by the
wife; and when the sovereign dies, and only leaves a single daughter,
to her, provided she is marriageable, devolves the royal authority. The
first thing she does is to travel over the whole of her kingdom.
On this occasion all her male subjects are obliged, previous to her
arrival at each town and village, to form themselves into a line for
her reception, and she selects one to pass the night with her. When
returned from her journey she sends for the man who best pleased her
and instantly marries him; after which the whole regal authority
devolves to the husband. These facts M. de la Brosse communicated to
me in his written remarks on what he saw most worthy of notice, during
his voyage to the coast of Angola, in 1738; and of the vindictiveness
of these negroes he adds the following anecdote:--"Every day (says he)
did they demand brandy of us for the king and chief men of the place.
Happening one day to refuse it them we had soon reason to repent; for
several officers, both French and English, having gone a fishing up
a small lake, they erected a tent for the purpose of enjoying the
fruits of their pastime. While thus employed they were joined by
seven or eight negroes, the chiefs of Loango, who, in the customary
mode of salutation, presented to them their hands. These they had
previously rubbed with a subtle poison, whose effect is instantaneous,
when unhappily the persons to whom it is communicated takes any thing
without first washing their hands; and so successful were they in their
purpose, that no less than eight persons perished upon the spot."
As a cure for a pain of the head, or for any bodily pain whatever,
these negroes make a slight wound upon the part affected, and through
a small horn, with a narrow hole, they suck out the blood till they
obtain relief.
The negroes of Senegal, Gambia, Cape de Verd, Angola, and Congo, are
of a more beautiful black than those of Juda, Issigni, Arada, and of
the circumjacent places. They are exceedingly black when in health, but
when sick they become of a copper-colour.
"In our islands (says Father du Tertre in his history of the Antilles)
the negroes of Angola are preferred to those of Cape de Verd, for
bodily strength; but when heated, their stench is so strong, that the
air whithersoever they pass is infected with it for above a quarter of
an hour. The negroes of Cape de Verd smell not so strong, their skin
likewise is more black and beautiful, their body is of a better shape,
their features less harsh, they are much tidier, and in disposition
more mild."
The negroes of Guinea are well qualified for the office of tillage,
and other laborious employments; those of Senegal are less vigorous,
yet are good domestic servants, and very ingenious. Father Charlevoix
says, that of all negroes the Senegal ones are the most shapely,
most tractable, and as domestic the most useful; that the Bambaras
are the tallest, but they are all idle and knavish; that the Aradas
best understand the culture of the earth; that the Congos are the
smallest, but most expert swimmers; that the Nagos are the most humane,
the Mondongos the most cruel; the Mimes the most resolute, the most
capricious, and the most subject to despair; that the Creole-negroes,
from whatever nation they derive their origin, inherit nothing from
their parents but the spirit of servitude and colour; they are more
ingenious, rational, and adroit, but more idle and debauched than
those of Africa. He adds, that the understanding of the negroes is
exceedingly contracted; that numbers of them seem to be even entirely
stupid, and can never be made to count more than three; that they
have no memory, and are as ignorant of what is past, as of what is to
come; that the most sprightly ridicule the others with a tolerable
grace; that they are full of dissimulation, and would sooner perish
than divulge a secret; that they are commonly mild, humane, tractable,
simple, credulous, and even superstitious; that they possess fidelity
and courage, and might with proper discipline make a tolerable figure
in the field.
If the negroes are deficient in genius, they are by no means so
in their feelings; they are cheerful or melancholy, laborious or
inactive, friendly or hostile, according to the manner in which they
are treated. If properly fed, and well treated, they are contented,
joyous, obliging, and on their very countenance we may read the
satisfaction of their soul. If hardly dealt with their spirits forsake
them, they droop with sorrow, and will die of melancholy. They are
alike impressed with injuries and favours. To the authors of the one
they are implacable enemies; while to those who use them well they
imbibe an affection which makes them defy all danger and hazard to
express their zeal and attachment. To their children, friends, and
countrymen, they are naturally compassionate; the little they have
they chearfully distribute among those who are in necessity, though
otherwise than from that necessity they have not the smallest knowledge
of them. That they have excellent hearts is evident, and in having
those they have the seeds of every virtue. Their sufferings demand a
tear. Are they not sufficiently wretched in being reduced to a state of
slavery; in being obliged always to work without reaping the smallest
fruits of their labour, without being abused, buffeted, and treated
like brutes? Humanity revolts at those oppressions, which nothing but
the thirst of gold could ever have introduced, and which would still,
perhaps, produce an aggravated repetition, did not the law prescribe
limits to the brutality of the master, and to the misery of his slave.
Negroes are compelled to labour; and yet of the coarsest food they
are sparingly supplied. Their unfeeling masters say, they can support
hunger well; that what would serve an European for one meal is to
them a sufficient subsistence for three days; however little they eat
or sleep, they are alike hardy, alike capable of fatigue. How can men,
in whom the smallest sentiment of humanity remains, adopt such maxims,
and on such shallow foundations attempt to justify excesses to which
nothing could ever have given birth but the most sordid avarice? But
let us turn from the gloomy picture, and return to our subject.
Of the people who inhabit the coasts, or the interior parts of Africa,
from Cape Negro to Cape de Voltes, an extent of about 400 leagues, we
know little more than that they are not so black as the other negroes,
and that they much resemble their neighbours the Hottentots: the latter
are a people well known, and few travellers have omitted speaking of
them. They are not Negroes, but Caffres; and their skin would be only
of a tawny hue did they not render it black with paint and grease.
M. Kolbe, though he has given so minute a description of the
Hottentots, considers them, however, as Negroes. He assures us their
hair is short, black, frizled, and woolly, and that not in a single
instance did he ever perceive it long. But from this alone we are not
authorised to consider them as real negroes. M. Kolbe himself says
their colour is olive, and never black, though they take the utmost
pains to render it so; nor, in the next place, can there be much
certainty derived from the appearance of their hair, as they never
either comb or wash it, but rub it daily with grease and soot in large
quantities, which gives it the resemblance of a fleece of black sheep
loaded with dirt; besides, they are in disposition different from
the negroes. The latter are cleanly, sedentary, and easily subjected
to slavery; the former, on the other hand, are frightfully filthy,
unsettled, independent, and highly jealous of their liberty. These
contrarieties are more than sufficient to confirm us in the opinion
that the Hottentots are of a race distinct from that of the Negroes.
Gama, who first doubled the Cape of Good Hope, on his arrival in the
bay of St. Helena, on the 4th of November, 1479, found the inhabitants
black, short in stature, and ugly in aspect. He does not say, however,
that they were naturally as black as the negroes, and doubtless they
only appeared to him so black as he describes, from the grease and
soot with which they are covered. The same traveller remarks, that in
the articulation of their voice there was something similar to a sigh.
Their habits were made of skins, and their weapons consisted of sticks
hardened with the fire, and pointed with the horn of some animal. To
the arts in use among the Negroes, the Hottentots, it is plain, are
utter strangers.
The Dutch travellers say, that the Savages northward of the Cape are
smaller than the Europeans; that their colour is a reddish brown; that
they are very ugly, and take great pains to render themselves black;
and their hair is like that of a man who has long hung in chains.
They add, that the Hottentots are of the colour of the Mulattoes;
that their visage is unshapely; that they are meagre, of a moderate
height, and very nimble; and that their language resembles the clucking
of turkey-cocks. Father Tachard says, that though they have commonly
hair as cottony as the Negroes, there are numbers who have it long,
and which floats upon their shoulders. He even asserts, that some of
them are as white as Europeans, but that they begrime their skin with
a mixture of grease and the powder of a certain black stone, and that
the women are naturally fair, but they blacken themselves to please
their husbands. Ovington says, that the Hottentots are more tawny than
the other Indians; that no people bear so strong a resemblance to the
Negroes in colour and features, but that they are less black, their
hair is not so frizly, nor their nose so flat.
From all these testimonies it is evident that the Hottentots are
not real negroes, but a people of the black race, approaching to
the whites, as the Moors of the white race do to the black. These
Hottentots, moreover, form a species of very extraordinary savages. The
women, who are much smaller than the men, have a kind of excrescence,
or hard skin, which grows over the os pubis, and descends to the middle
of the thighs in the form of an apron. Thevenot says the same thing
of the Egyptian women, but instead of allowing this skin to grow,
they burn it off with hot irons. I doubt whether the remark is true
with respect to the Egyptian women; but certain it is that all the
female natives of the Cape are subject to this monstrous deformity,
and which they expose to such persons as have the curiosity to see it.
The men, though not by nature, are all demi-eunuchs, being, from an
absurd custom, deprived of one of their testicles at about the age
of eighteen years. M. Kolbe saw this operation performed upon a young
Hottentot; and the circumstances with which the ceremony is accompanied
are so singular as to merit a recital.
After having rubbed the young man with the fat of the entrails of
sheep, which had been killed on purpose, they stretched him upon his
back, and tied his hands and his feet, while three or four of his
friends held him. Then the priest (for it is a religious ceremony) made
an incision with a very sharp knife, look out the left testicle[D], and
in its place deposited a ball of fat of the same size, which had been
prepared with certain medicinal herbs. After sewing up the wound with
the tendon of a sheep they untied the patient; but the priest before
he left him rubbed his whole body with the hot fat of the sheep, or
rather poured it on so plentifully, that when the fat cooled, it formed
a kind of crust. This rubbing was so violent, that the young man, whose
previous sufferings had been sufficiently great, was now covered with
large drops of sweat, and began to smoke like a roasted capon. On this
crust of grease the operator then made furrows with his nails, from
one extremity to the other, and after making water in them, he renewed
his frictions, and filled up the furrows with more grease. The instant
the ceremony is concluded they leave the patient, in general more dead
than alive, yet he is obliged to crawl in the best manner he can to a
little hut, built for him on purpose, near the spot where the operation
is performed. There he perishes or recovers without assistance or
nourishment but the fat upon his skin, which he may lick if he pleases.
At the expiration of two days he generally recovers. He is then allowed
to appear abroad; and as a proof that his recovery is complete he must
run and shew himself as nimble as a stag.
[D] Tavernier, in speaking of this strange custom, says that it is the
right testicle which they cut off.
Though all the Hottentots have broad flat noses, yet they would not be
so did not their mothers, considering a prominent nose as a deformity,
flatten them immediately after their birth. Their lips are also thick,
their teeth white, their eye-brows bushy, their heads large, their
bodies meagre, and their limbs are slender. They seldom live longer
than 40 years; and this short duration of life is doubtless caused by
their being continually covered with filth, and living chiefly upon
meat that is corrupted. As most travellers have already given very
large accounts of these filthy people, I shall only add one fact, as
related by Tavernier. The Dutch, he says, once took away a Hottentot
girl, soon after her birth, and bringing her up among themselves, she
became as white as any European. From this fact he presumes, that all
the Hottentots would be tolerably fair, were it not for their custom of
perpetually begriming themselves.
Along the coast of Africa beyond the Cape of Good Hope, we find the
land of Natal, and a people very different from the Hottentots, being
better made, less ugly, and naturally more black. Their visage is
oval, their nose well proportioned, their teeth white, their aspect
agreeable, and their hair by nature frizly. They are also fond of
grease, and wear caps made of the fat of oxen. These caps are from
eight to ten inches high, and they take much time to make them; for
the fat must be well refined, which they apply by little and little,
and so thoroughly intermix it with the hair that it never falls off.
Kolbe says, that from their birth and without any precaution to render
it so, their noses are flat; they also differ from the Hottentots in
not stuttering, nor striking the palate with the tongue; that they have
houses, cultivate the ground, and produce from it a kind of maize,
or Turkish corn, of which they make beer, a drink unknown to the
Hottentots.
After the land of Natal, we find the territories of Sofala and
Monomotapa. The people of the former, according to Pigafetta, are
black, but more tall and lusty than the other Caffres. It is in the
environs of the kingdom of Sofala that this author places the Amazons;
but nothing is more uncertain than what has been propagated with
respect to these female warriors.
The natives of Monomotapa, the Dutch travellers inform us, are tall,
well proportioned, black, and of good complexions. The young girls go
naked, except a bit of calico about their middle; but so soon as they
are married they put on garments. This people, notwithstanding their
blackness, are different from the negroes, their features are neither
so harsh nor so ugly; their bodies have no bad smell; and they are
incapable of servitude or hard labour. Father Charlevoix says, that
some blacks from Monomotapa, and from Madagascar, have been seen in
America; but that they could not be inured to labour, and that they
soon died.
The natives of Madagascar and Mosambique are black, more or less. Those
of Madagascar have the hair on the crown of their head less frizly than
those of Mosambique. Neither of them are real negroes; and though those
of the coast are enslaved by the Portuguese, yet those of the internal
part of the continent are savage and jealous of their liberty. They all
go absolutely naked; they feed on the flesh of elephants, and traffic
with the ivory.
In Madagascar there are blacks and whites who, though very tawny, yet
seem a distinct race of men. The hair of the first is black and frizly;
that of the latter is less black, less frizly, and longer. The common
opinion is, that these white men derive their origin from the Chinese.
But, as Francis Cauche justly remarks, there is a greater probability
that they are of European race; as in all he saw, there was not one
who had either the flat face or flat nose, of the Chinese. He likewise
says, that these white men are fairer than the Castillans; that their
hair is very long; that the black men are not flat-nosed like those of
the continent; and that their lips are thin. There are also in this
island a number of persons of an olive or tawny colour, evidently
produced by the intermixture of the blacks and whites. The same
traveller observes, that the natives round the bay of St. Augustine are
tawny; that they have no beard; that their hair is long and straight;
that they are tall and well proportioned; and that they are all
circumcised, though probably they never heard of the law of Mahomet, as
they have neither temples, mosques, nor religion.
The French, who were the first who landed and settled upon the above
island, found the white men we speak of; and they remarked, that the
blacks paid great respect to them. Madagascar is exceedingly populous,
and rich in pasturage and in cattle. Both sexes are highly debauched;
nor is it a dishonour to a woman to be a prostitute. They are fond of
singing, dancing, and pastimes in general. Though naturally very lazy,
they have some knowledge of the mechanic arts. They have husbandmen,
carpenters, potters, blacksmiths, and even goldsmiths; yet their houses
are without accommodation, and they sleep upon mats; they eat flesh
almost raw, and devour even the hides of their oxen after burning off
the hair; they also eat the wax with the honey. The common people go
almost naked; but the richer classes wear drawers, or short petticoats,
of cotton and silk.
Those who inhabit the interior parts of Africa are not sufficiently
known to be justly described. Those whom the Arabians call _Zingues_,
are an almost savage race of black men. Marmol says, they multiply
prodigiously, and would overrun all the neighbouring countries, were
it not for certain hot winds, which from time to time occasion a great
mortality among them.
It appears, then, from these facts, that the Negroes are blacks of
a different species from the Caffres. From the descriptions we have
given, it is also evident that the colour depends principally upon
the climate, and that the peculiarity of the features depends greatly
on the customs prevalent among different nations, such as flattening
the nose, drawing back the eye-lids, plucking the hair out of the
eye-brows, lengthening the ears, thickening the lips, flattening the
visage, &c. No stronger proof can be adduced of the influence of
climate upon colour, than finding under the same latitude, and at the
distance of 1000 leagues, two nations so similar as those of Senegal
and Nubia; and also that the Hottentots, who must have derived their
origin from a black race, are whiter than any other Africans, because
the climate in which they live is the coldest. Should there being a
tawny race on one side the Senegal, and perfect blacks on the other,
be stated as an objection, it is only necessary to recollect what has
been already intimated concerning the effects of food, which must
operate upon the colour, as well as upon the temperament of the body in
general. An example may easily be had in the brute creation. The flesh
of the hares, for instance, which live on plains and marshy places, is
much more white than those which, though in the same neighbourhood,
live on mountains and dry grounds. The colour of the flesh proceeds
from that of the blood, and other humours of the body, of which the
quality is necessarily influenced by the nature of the nourishment.
In all ages has the origin of black men formed a grand object of
enquiry. The ancients, who hardly knew any but those of Nubia,
considered them as forming the last shade of the tawny colour; and
confounded them with the Ethiopians, and other African nations, who,
though extremely brown, have more affinity to the white than to the
black race. They concluded, that the differences of colour in men
arose solely from the difference of climate, and that blackness was
occasioned by a perpetual exposure to the violent heat of the sun.
To this opinion, which seems probable, great objections arose, when
it was known, that, in more southern climates, and even under the
equator itself, as at Melinda, and at Mosambique, the generality of
the inhabitants were not black but only very tawny; and when it was
observed that black men, if transported into more temperate regions,
lost nothing of their colour, but communicated it to their decendants.
If we reflect on the migrations of different nations, and on the time
which is necessary to render a change in the colour, we shall find
no inconsistency in the opinion of the ancients. The real natives of
that part of Africa are Nubians, who were originally black, and will
perpetually remain so, while they inhabit the same climate, and do not
mix with the whites. The Ethiopians, the Abyssinians, and even the
natives of Melinda, derive their origin from the whites, yet as their
religion and customs are the same with those of the Arabians, they
resemble them in colour, though indeed more tawny than those of the
southern parts. This even proves, that, in the same race of men, the
greater or less degree of black depends on the heat of the climate.
Many ages might perhaps elapse, before a white race would become
altogether black; but there is a probability that, in time, a white
people, transported from the north to the equator, would experience
that change, especially if they were to change their manners, and to
feed solely on the productions of the warm climate.
Of little weight is the objection which may be made to this opinion,
from the difference of the features, for in the features of a negro,
which have not been disfigured in his infancy, and the features of
an European, there is less difference than between those of a Tartar
and a Chinese, or of a Circassian and a Greek. As for the hair, its
nature depends so greatly on that of the skin, that any differences
which it produces ought to be considered as accidental, since we find
in the same country, and in the same town, men whose hair is entirely
different from one another. In France, for instance, we meet with men
whose hair is as short and frizly as that of a negro; besides, so
powerful is the influence of climate upon the colour of the hair, both
of men and of animals, that, in the kingdoms of the north, black hair
is seldom seen; and hares, squirrels, weasels, and many other animals,
which, in countries less cold, are brown or grey, are there white, or
nearly so. The difference produced by cold and heat, is so conspicuous,
that in Sweden hares, and certain other animals, are grey during the
summer, and white in winter.
But there is another circumstance more powerful, and, from the first
view of it, indeed insuperable; namely, that in the New World there
is not one true black to be seen, the natives being red, tawny, or
copper-coloured. If blackness was the effect of heat the natives of
the Antilles, Mexico, Santa-Fé, Guiana, the country of the Amazons,
and Peru, would necessarily be so, since those countries of America
are situated in the same latitude with Senegal, Guinea, and Angola, in
Africa. In Brazil, Paraguay, and Chili, did the colour of men depend
upon the climate, or the distance from the pole, we might expect to
find men similar to the Caffres and Hottentots. But before we enter
into a discussion of this subject, it is necessary that we should
examine the different natives of America, as we shall then be more
enabled to form just comparisons, and to draw general conclusions.
In the most northern parts of America we find a species of Laplanders
similar to those of Europe, or to the Samoiedes of Asia, and though
they are few in number yet they are diffused over a very considerable
extent of country. Those who inhabit the lands of Davis's Straits are
small, of an olive complexion, and their limbs short and thick. They
are skilful fishers, and eat their fish and meat raw; their drink is
pure water, or the blood of the dog-fish; they are very strong, and
live to a great age. Here we see the figure, colour, and manners of the
Laplanders; and, what is truly singular, as in the neighbourhood of
the Laplanders of Europe, we meet with the Finlanders, who are white,
comely, tall, and well made; so, adjacent to the Laplanders of America,
we meet with a species of men tall, well made, white, and with features
exceedingly regular.
Of a different race seem the savages of Hudson's Bay, and northward of
the land of Labrador; although small, ugly, and unshapely, their visage
is almost covered with hair, like the savages of Jesso, northward of
Japan: in summer they dwell in tents made of skins of the rein-deer; in
winter they live under ground, like the Laplanders and the Samoiedes,
and sleep together promiscuously without the smallest ceremony. They
live to a great age, though they feed on nothing but raw meat and fish.
The savages of Newfoundland resemble those of Davis's Straits, they are
low in stature, have little or no beard, broad and flat faces; large
eyes and flat nosed; they are also far from being unlike the savages in
the environs of Greenland.
Besides these savages, who are scattered over the most northern parts
of America, we find a more numerous and different race in Canada, and
who occupy the vast extent of territory as far as the Assiniboils.
These are all tall, robust, and well-made; have black hair and eyes,
teeth very white, a tawny complexion, little beard, and hardly a
vestige of hair on their bodies; they are hardy, indefatigable
travellers, and very nimble runners. They are alike unaffected by
excesses of hunger, or of eating; they are bold, hardy, grave, and
sedate. So strongly, indeed, do they resemble the Oriental Tartars
in colour, form, and features, as also in disposition, and manners,
that, were they not separated by an immense sea, we should conclude
them to have descended from that nation. In point of latitude, their
situation is also the same; and this further proves the influence of
the climate, not only on the colour, but the figure of men. In a word,
in the new continent as in the old, we find, at first, in the northern
parts, men similar to the Laplanders, and likewise whites with fair
hair, like the inhabitants of the north of Europe; then hairy men like
the savages of Jesso; and lastly, the savages of Canada, and of the
whole continent to the gulph of Mexico, who resemble the Tartars in so
many respects, that we should not entertain a doubt of their being the
same people, were we not embarrassed about the possibility of their
migration thither. Yet, if we reflect on the small number of men found
upon this extent of ground, and on their being entirely uncivilized,
we shall be inclined to believe these savage nations were new colonies
produced by a few individuals from some other country. It is asserted
that North America does not contain the twentieth part of the natives
it did when originally discovered; allowing that to be the fact, we
still are authorised to consider it then, from the scantiness of its
inhabitants, as a land either deserted, or so recently peopled, that
its inhabitants had not had time for a considerable multiplication.
M. Fabry, who travelled a prodigious way to the north-west of the
Mississippi, and visited places where no European had been, and where
consequently the savage inhabitants could not have been destroyed
by them, says that he often travelled 200 leagues without observing
a single human face, or the smallest vestige of a habitation; that
whenever he did meet with any habitations, they were always at
immense distances from each other, and then never above 20 persons
together. Along the lakes, and the rivers, it is true, the savages
are more populous, some sufficiently so as to molest occasionally
the inhabitants of our colonies. The most considerable of these,
nevertheless, do not exceed 3 or 4000 persons, and are dispersed over a
space of ground frequently more extensive than the kingdom of France. I
am fully persuaded there are more men in the city of Paris, than there
are savages in north America, from the gulph of Mexico to the furthest
extremity north, an extent of ground larger than all Europe.
The multiplication of the human species depends more on society
than nature. Men would not have been comparatively so numerous as
wild beasts, had they not associated together, and given aid and
succour to each other. In North America, the _Bison_[E] is perhaps
more frequently to be seen than a man. But though society may be one
great cause of population, yet it is the increased number of men
that necessarily produces unity. It is to be presumed therefore that
the want of civilization in America was owing to the small number
of the inhabitants, for though each nation might have manners and
customs peculiar to itself; though some might be more fierce, cruel,
courageous, or dastardly than others; they were yet all equally stupid,
ignorant, unacquainted with the arts, and destitute of industry.
[E] A kind of wild bull, different from the European bull.
To dwell longer on the customs of savage nations would be unnecessary.
Authors have often given for the established manners of a community,
what were nothing more than actions peculiar to a few individuals,
and often determined by circumstances, or caprice. Some nations tell
us, they eat their enemies, others burn, and some mutilate them; one
nation is perpetually at war, and another loves to live in peace; in
one country, the child kills his parent, when arrived at a certain age,
and in another the parents eat their children. All these stories, on
which travellers have so much enlarged, mean nothing more than that
one individual savage had devoured his enemy, another had burned or
mutilated him, and a third had killed and eaten his child. All these
things may happen in every savage nation; for a people among whom
there is no regular government, no law, no habitual society, ought
rather to be termed a tumultous assemblage of barbarous and independent
individuals, who obey nothing but their own private passions, and who
have no common interest, are incapable of pursuing one object, and
submitting to settled usages which supposes general designs, founded on
reason, and approved of by the majority.
A nation, it may be replied, is composed of men who are no strangers
to each other, who speak the same language, who unite, when necessity
calls, under the same chief, who arm themselves in the same fashion,
and daub themselves of the same colour. With truth might the remark
be made, if these usages were established; if savages did not often
assemble they know not how, and disperse they know not why; if their
chief did not cease to be so, whenever it suited their caprice, or his
own; and if their language was not so simple as to be, with little
variation, the language of every tribe.
As they have but few ideas, their expressions turn upon things the most
general, and objects the most common; and, though the majority of their
expressions were different, yet the smallness of their number renders
them easily understood; and more easily, therefore, may a savage
learn the languages of all other savages, than the inhabitants of one
polished nation acquire a bare comprehension of the language of any
other nation equally civilized.
Unnecessary as it may be to enlarge on the customs and manners of these
pretended nations, yet it may be important to examine the nature of
the individual. Of all animals a savage man is the most singular, the
least known, and the most difficult to describe; and so little are we
qualified to distinguish the gifts of nature from what is acquired
by education, art and imitation, that it would not be surprising to
find we had totally mistaken the picture of a savage, although it were
presented to us in its real colours, and with its natural features.
An absolute savage, such as a boy reared among bears, as mentioned by
Conor, the young man found in the forest of Hanover, or the girl in
the woods in France, would be a curious object to a philosopher; in
observing which he might be able to ascertain the force of natural
appetites; he would see the mind undisguised, and distinguish all
its movements; and, possibly, he might discover in it more mildness,
serenity, and peace, than in his own; he might also perceive, that
virtue belongs more to the savage than to the civilized man, and that
vice owes its birth to society.
But let us return to our subject. If in North America there were none
but savages, in Mexico and Peru we found a polished people, subjected
to laws, governed by kings, industrious, acquainted with the arts,
and not destitute of religion. They lived in towns where the civil
government was superintended by the sovereign. These people, who
were very populous, cannot be considered as new colonies sprung from
individuals who had wandered from Europe or Asia, from which they
are so remote; besides, though the Savages of North America resemble
the Tartars, by their being situated in the same latitude, yet the
natives of Mexico and Peru, though they live, like the Negroes, under
the torrid zone, have not the smallest resemblance to them. Whence
then, shall we trace the origin of these people? and whence proceeds
the cause of the difference of colour in the human species, since the
influence of climate is, in this case, entirely overthrown?
Previous to answering these questions let us pursue our inquiries
respecting the Savages of South America. Those of Florida, of the
Mississippi, and of the other southern parts of this continent, are
more tawny than those of Canada, though not positively brown, the oil
and colours with which they rub their bodies, giving them an olive hue
which does not naturally belong to them. Coreal says, that the women
of Florida are tall, strong, and of an olive complexion, like the men;
that they paint their arms, legs, and bodies, with several colours,
which as they are imprinted into the flesh by little incisions, are
indelible; and that the olive colour of both sexes proceeds not so much
from the heat of the climate as from the oils with which they varnish
their skin. He adds, that the women are remarkably active; that they
swim over great rivers with a child in their arms, and that they climb
up the loftiest trees with equal agility. In all of these particulars
they entirely resemble the savage women of Canada, and other countries
of America.
Speaking of the Apalachites, a people in the vicinage of Florida, the
author of the "Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Antilles," says, that
they are of a large stature, of an olive colour, and well proportioned;
and that their hair is black and long. He adds, that the Caribbees, who
inhabit the Antilles, are sprung from the savages of Florida, and that
they even know, by tradition, the period of their migration.
The natives of the Lucai islands are less tawny than those of St.
Domingo and Cuba; but there remain so few of either that we can hardly
verify what the first travellers mention of the inhabitants. It has
been pretended that they were very numerous, and governed by chiefs
whom they call _caciques_; that they had priests and physicians; but
this is all very problematical, and is of little consequence to our
history. The Caribbees, in general, according to Father du Tertre,
are tall, and of a good aspect: they are potent, robust, active, and
healthy. Numbers of them have flat foreheads and noses, but these
features are entirely the work of the parents, soon after their birth.
In all savage nations this caprice of altering the natural figure of
the head is very frequent. Most of the Caribbees have little black
eyes, beautiful white teeth, and long smooth black hair. Their skin is
tawny, or olive, and even the whites of their eyes are rather of that
hue. This is their natural colour, and not produced by the use of the
rocon, as some authors have asserted, for several of the children of
these savages, who were educated among the Europeans, and not allowed
the use of paint, retained the same complexion as their parents. The
whole of this savage tribe, though their thoughts are seldom employed,
have a pensive air. They are naturally mild and compassionate, though
exceedingly cruel to their enemies. They esteem it indifferent whom
they marry, whether relations or strangers. Their first cousins belong
to them by right, and many have been known to have at one time two
sisters, or a mother and her daughter, and even their own child.
Those who have many wives visit them in turn, and stay a month, or a
certain numbers of days, which precludes all jealousy among the women.
They readily forgive their wives for adultery, but are implacable
enemies to the man who debauches them. They feed on lizards, serpents,
crabs, turtles and fishes, which they season with pimento, and the
flower of manioc. Lazy to an excess, and accustomed to the greatest
independence, they detest slavery, and can never be rendered so useful
as the Negroes. For the preservation of their liberty they make every
exertion; and when they find it impossible, will rather die of hunger
or despair than live and be obliged to work. Attempts have been made
to employ the Arrouaguas, who are milder than the Caribbees, but
who are only fit for hunting and fishing; exercises of which, being
accustomed to them in their own country, they are particularly fond. If
these savages are not used with at least as much mildness as domestics
generally are in the civilized nations of Europe, they either run away
or pine themselves to death. Nearly the same is it with the slaves of
Brazil; of all Savages these seem to be the least stupid, indolent, or
melancholy. Treated with gentleness, however, they will do whatever
they are desired, unless it be to cultivate the ground, for tillage
they conceive to be the characteristic badge of slavery.
Savage women are all smaller than the men. Those of the Caribbees are
fat, and tolerably handsome; their eyes and hair are black, their
visage round, their mouth small, their teeth white, and their carriage
more gay, cheerful, and open, than that of the men. Yet are they modest
and reserved. They daub themselves with rocon, but do not, like the
men, make black streaks upon the face and body. Their dress consists of
a kind of apron, in breadth about eight or ten inches, and in length
about five or six. This apron is generally made of calico, and covered
with small glass beads, both which commodities they purchase from the
Europeans. They likewise wear necklaces, which descend over the breast,
as also bracelets round the wrists and elbows, and pendants in their
ears, of blue stone, or of glass beads. Another ornament peculiar to
the sex is, a kind of buskin, made of calico, and garnished with glass
beads, which extends from the ancle to the calf of the leg. On their
attaining the age of puberty the girls receive an apron and a pair of
buskins, which are made exactly to their legs and cannot be removed;
and as they prevent the increase of the under part of the leg, the
upper parts naturally grow larger than they would otherwise have done.
So intermixed are the present inhabitants of Mexico and Peru, that we
rarely meet with two faces of the same colour. In the town of Mexico,
there are Europeans, Indians from north and south America, negroes from
Africa, and mulattoes of every kind, insomuch that the people exhibit
every kind of shade between black and white. The natives of the country
are brown, or olive, well made and active. Though they have little
hair, even on their eye-brows, yet that upon their head is very long,
and very black.
According to Wafer, the natives of the Isthmus of America are commonly
tall and handsome; their limbs are well shaped, chest large, and at the
chace they are active and nimble. The women are short, squat, and less
vivacious than the men; though the young ones are tolerably comely, and
have lively eyes. Of both the face is round; the nose thick and short;
the eyes large, mostly grey, and full of fire; the forehead high; the
teeth white and regular; the lips thin; the mouth of a moderate size;
and, in general, all their features are tolerably regular. They have
black, long, and straight hair; and the men would have beards did they
not pluck them out: their colour is tawny and their eye-brows are as
black as jet.
These people are not the only natives of this Isthmus, for we find
among them men who are white; but their colour is not the white of
Europeans, but rather resembles that of milk, or the hairs of a white
horse. Their skin is covered with a kind of short and whitish down,
which on the cheeks and forehead is not so thick but the skin may be
seen. The hair upon their head and eye-brows is perfectly white; the
former is rather frizled, and from seven to eight inches long. They are
not so tall as the other Indians; and, what is singular, their eye-lids
are of an oblong figure, or rather in the form of a cresent, whose
points turn downwards. So weak are their eyes, that they cannot support
the light of the sun, and they see best by that of the moon. Their
complexion is exceedingly delicate. To all laborious exercises they are
averse; they sleep through the day, and never stir abroad till night.
If the moon shines, they scamper through the forests as nimbly as the
others can in the day. These men do not from a particular and distinct
race, as it sometimes happens, that from parents who are both of a
copper-colour one of these children is produced. Wafer, who relates
these facts, says, that he saw a child, not a year old, who had been
thus produced.
If this were the case, the strange colour, and temperament of these
white Indians, can only be a kind of malady, which they inherit from
their parents. But if, instead of being sprung from the yellow Indians,
they formed a separate race, then would they resemble the Chacrelas of
Java, and the Bedas of Ceylon, whom we have already mentioned. If, on
the other hand, these white people are actually born of copper-coloured
parents, we shall have reason to believe, that the Chacrelas and the
Bedas originate also from parents of the same colour; and that all
the white men, whom we find at such distances from each other, are
individuals who have degenerated from their race by some accidental
cause.
This last opinion, I own, appears to me the most probable; and had
travellers given us as exact descriptions of the Bedas and Chacrelas,
as Wafer has done of the Dariens, we should, perhaps, have discovered
that they were no more of European origin than the latter. This
opinion receives great weight from the fact that negroes sometimes have
white children. Of two of those white negroes we have a description in
the history of the French Academy; one of the two I saw myself, and am
assured there are many to be met with among the other negroes of Africa.
From what I have myself observed, independent of the information of
travellers, I have no doubt, but that they are only negroes degenerated
from their race, and not a peculiar and established species of men. In
a word, they are among the negroes, what Wafer says, the white Indians
are among the yellow Indians of Darien, and what the Chacrelas and the
Bedas are among the brown Indians of the East. Still more singular is
it that this variation never happens but from black to white, and also
that all the nations of the East Indies, of Africa, and of America, in
which those white men are found, are in the same latitude. The isthmus
of Darien, the country of the negroes, and Ceylon, are absolutely under
the same line. White then appears to be the primitive colour of Nature,
which climate, food, and manners, alter, and even change into yellow,
brown, or black; and which, in certain circumstances, reappears,
though by no means equal to its original whiteness on account of its
corruption from the causes here mentioned.
Nature, in her full perfection, made men white; and, reduced to the
last stage of adulteration, she renders them white again. But the
natural white is widely different from the individual, or accidental
white. In plants, as well as in men and animals, do we find examples of
this fact. The white rose, &c. differs greatly in point of whiteness
from the red rose, which becomes white by the cold evenings and frosty
chills of autumn.
A further proof that these white men are merely degenerated
individuals, is their being less strong and vigorous than others,
and their eyes being extremely weak. The fact will appear less
extraordinary, when we recollect, that, among ourselves, very fair men
have very weak eyes, and that such people are often slow of hearing.
It is pretended that dogs absolutely white, are deaf. Whether the
observation is generally just, I know not, but in a number of instances
I have seen it confirmed.
The Indians of Peru, like the natives of the Isthmus, are
copper-coloured; those especially who live near the sea, and in the
plains. Those who live between the two ridges of the Cordeliers,
are almost as white as the Europeans. Some live in Peru more than a
league higher than others; and which elevation, with respect to the
temperature of the climate, is equal to twenty leagues in latitude.
All the native Indians, who dwell along the river of the Amazons, and
in Guiana are tawny, and more or less red. The diversity of shades,
says M. de la Condamine, is principally occasioned by the different
temperature of the air, varied as it is, from the extreme heat of the
torrid zone, to the cold occasioned by the vicinage of snow. Some of
these Savages, as the Omaguas, flatten the visages of their children,
by compressing the head between two planks; others pierce the nostrils,
lips, or cheeks, for the reception of the bones of fishes, feathers,
and other ornaments; and the greatest part bore their ears, and fill
the hole with a large bunch of flowers, or herbs, which serves them
for pendants. With respect to the Amazons, about whom so much has been
said, I shall be silent. To those who have written on the subject
I refer the reader; and when he has perused them he will not find
sufficient proof to evince the actual existence of such women.
Some authors mention a nation in Guiana of which the natives are more
black than any other Indians. The Arras, says Raleigh, are almost as
black as the Negroes, are vigorous, and use poisoned arrows. This
author mentions likewise another nation of Indians, who have necks so
short, and shoulders so elevated, that their eyes appear to be upon
the latter, and their mouths in their breast. This monstrous deformity
cannot be natural; and it is probable that savages, who are so pleased
in disfiguring nature by flattening, rounding, and lengthening the
head, might likewise contrive to sink it into the shoulders. These
fantasies might arise from an idea that, by rendering themselves
deformed, they became more dreadful to their enemies. The Scythians,
formerly, as savage as the American Indians are now, evidently
entertained the same ideas, and realized them in the same manner; which
no doubt is the foundation of what the ancients have written about such
men as they termed acephali, cynocephali, &c.
The Savages of Brazil are nearly of the size of the Europeans, but
are more vigorous, robust, and alert: they are also subject to fewer
diseases, and live longer. Their hair, which is black, seldom whitens
with age. They are of a copper-colour, inclining to red: their heads
are large, shoulders broad, and hair long. They pluck out their beard,
the hair upon the body, and even the eye-brows, from which they acquire
an extraordinary fierce look. They pierce the under lip, to ornament
it with a little bone polished like ivory, or with a green stone.
The mothers crush the noses of their children, presently after they
are born; they all go absolutely naked, and paint their bodies of
different colours. Those who inhabit the countries adjacent to the sea
are somewhat civilized by the commerce which they carry on with the
Portuguese; but those of the inland places are still absolute savages.
It is not by force that savages have become civilized, their manners
have been much more softened by the arguments of missionaries, than
by the arms of the princes by whom they were subdued. In this manner
Paraguay was subdued: the mildness, example, and virtuous conduct of
the missionaries touched the hearts of its savages, and triumphed over
their distrust and ferocity. They often, of themselves, desired to be
made acquainted with that law, which rendered men so perfect, submitted
to its precepts, and united in society. Nothing can reflect greater
honour on religion, than its having civilized these nations, and laid
the foundations of an empire, without any arms but those of virtue and
humanity.
The inhabitants of Paraguay are commonly tall and handsome; their
visage long, and their colour olive. There sometimes rages among them
a very uncommon distemper. It is a kind of leprosy, which covers the
whole of their body with a crust similar to the scales of fish, and
from which they experience no pain, nor even interruption of health.
According to Frezier, the Indians of Chili are of a tawny or coppery
complexion, but different from Mulattoes, who being produced by a white
man and negro-woman, or a white woman and a negro-man, their colour
is brown, or a mixture of white and black. In South America, on the
other hand, the Indians are yellow, or rather reddish. The natives of
Chili are of a good size; their limbs are brawny, chest large, visages
disagreeable, and beardless; eyes small, ears long, and their hair
black, straight, and coarse. Their ears they lengthen, and pluck out
their beards with pincers made of shells. Though the climate is cold,
yet they generally go naked, excepting the skin of some animal over
their shoulders.
At the extremity of Chili, and towards the lands of Magellan, it is
pretended, there exists a race of men of gigantic size. From the
information of several Spaniards, who pretend to have seen them,
Frezier says, they are from 9 to 10 feet high; they are called
_Patagonians_, and inhabit the easterly side of the coast, as mentioned
in the old narratives, which, however, from the size of Indians
discovered in the Straits of Magellan, not exceeding that of other men,
has since been considered as fabulous. It might be by this, says he,
that Froger was deceived in his account of the voyage of M. de Gennes;
as several navigators have actually beheld both these classes of
Indians at the same time. In 1709, the crew of the James, of St. Malo,
saw seven giants as above described, in Gregory Bay, and those of the
St. Peter, of Marseilles, saw six, to whom they advanced with offers of
bread, wine, and brandy, all of which they rejected; but as M. Frezier
does not intimate his having seen any of these giants himself, and as
the narratives which mention them are fraught with exaggerations with
respect to other matters, it remains still doubtful whether there in
reality exists a race of giants, especially of the height of ten feet.
The bodily circumference of such a man would be eight times bigger
than that of an ordinary one. The natural height of mankind seems to
be about five feet, and the deviations from that standard scarcely
exceed a foot, so that a man of six feet is considered as very tall,
and a man of four as very short. Giants and dwarfs, therefore, are only
accidental varieties, and not distinct and permanent races.
Besides, if these Magellanic giants actually exist, their number must
be trifling; as the savages of the straits, and neighbouring islands,
are of a moderate height, whose colour is olive, have full chests,
square bodies, thick limbs, and black straight hair; who, in a word,
resemble mankind in general as to size, as the other Americans as to
colour and hair.
In the whole of the new continent, then, there is but one race of men,
who are all more or less tawny, the northern parts of America excepted,
where we find some men similar to the Laplanders, and others with fair
hair, like the northern Europeans; through the whole of this immense
territory, the diversity among the inhabitants is hardly perceivable.
Among those of the old continent, on the other hand, we have found a
prodigious variety. This uniformity in the Americans seems to arise
from their living all in the same manner. The natives were, and are
still savages; nor, so recently have they been civilized, can the
Mexicans and the Peruvians be excepted. Whatever, then, may have been
their origin, it was common to them all. Sprung from one stock, they
have, with little variation, retained the characteristics of their
race; and this because they have pursued the same course of life,
because their climate, with respect to heat and cold, is not so unequal
as that of the old continent, and because, being newly established in
the country, the causes by which varieties are produced have not had
time to manifest their defects.
Each of these reasons merits a particular consideration. That the
Americans are a new people seems indisputable, when we reflect on the
smallness of their number, their ignorance, and the little progress the
most civilized among them had made in the arts. In the first accounts
of the discovery and conquest of America, it is true, Mexico, Peru,
St. Domingo, &c. are mentioned as very populous countries; and we are
told that the Spaniards had every where to engage with vast armies;
yet it is evident these facts are greatly exaggerated; first, from the
paucity of monuments left of the pretended grandeur of these nations:
secondly, from the nature of the country itself, which, though peopled
with Europeans, more industrious, doubtless, than its natives, is
still wild, uncultivated, covered with wood, and little more than a
group of inacessible and uninhabitable mountains; thirdly, from their
own traditions, with respect to the time they united into society,
the Peruvians reckoning no more than 12 kings, from the first of
whom, about 300 years before, they had imbibed the first principles
of civilization, and ceased to be entirely savage; fourthly, from the
small number of men employed to conquer them, which even with the
advantage of gunpowder, they could not have done, had the people been
numerous. Though the effects of gunpowder were as new and as terrible
to the negroes as to the Americans, their country has yet remained
unconquered, and themselves unenslaved; and the ease with which America
was subdued, appears an irrefragable argument that the country was
thinly peopled, and recently inhabited.
In the New Continent, the temperature of the different climates is more
uniform than in the Old Continent; for this there are several causes.
The Torrid Zone, in America, is by no means so hot as in Africa. The
countries comprehended under the former zone, are Mexico, New Spain,
and Peru, the land of the Amazons, Brazil, and Guiana. In Mexico, New
Spain, and Peru, the heat is never very great; these countries are
prodigiously elevated above the ordinary level of the earth; nor in
the hottest weather does the thermometer rise so high in Peru as in
France. By the snow which covers the tops of the mountains the air is
cooled; and as this cause, which is merely an effect of the former,
has a strong influence upon the temperature of the climate, so the
inhabitants, instead of being black, or dark brown, are only tawny.
The land of the Amazons is particularly watery, and full of forests;
there the air is exceedingly moist, and consequently more cool than in
a country more dry. Besides, it is to be observed, that the east wind,
which blows constantly between the tropics, does not reach Brazil, the
land of the Amazons, or Guiana, without traversing a vast sea, by which
it acquires a degree of coolness. It is from this reason, as well as
from their being so full of rivers and forests, and almost continued
rains, that these parts of America are so exceedingly temperate. But
the east wind, after passing the low countries of America, becomes
considerably heated before it arrives at Peru; and therefore, were
it not for its elevated situation, and for the snow, by which the
air is cooled, the heat would be greater there than either in Brazil
or Guiana. There still, however, remains a sufficiency of heat to
influence the colour of the natives: for those who are most exposed to
it their colour is more yellow than those who live sheltered in the
vallies. Besides, this wind blowing against these lofty mountains, must
be reflected on the neighbouring plains, and diffuse over them that
coolness which it received from the snow that covers their tops; and
from this snow itself, when it dissolves, cold winds must necessarily
arise. All these causes concurring to render the climate of the Torrid
Zone in America far less hot, it is not surprising that its inhabitants
are not so black nor brown as those under the Torrid Zone in Africa and
Asia, where, as we shall shew, there is a difference of circumstances.
Whether we suppose, then, that the Americans have been long or recently
established in that country, their Torrid Zone being temperate, they
are of course not black.
The uniformity in their mode of living, I also assigned for the little
variety to be found in the natives of America. As they were all savage,
or recently civilized, they all lived in the same manner. In supposing
that they had all one common origin, they were dispersed, without being
intermixed; each family formed a nation not only similar to itself, but
to all about them, because their climate and food were nearly similar;
and as they had no opportunity either to degenerate or improve, so they
could not but remain constantly and almost universally the same.
That their origin is the same with our own, I doubt not, independent
of theological arguments; and from the resemblance of the savages of
North America to the Oriental Tartars, there is reason to suppose
they originally sprung from the same source. The new discoveries by
the Russians, on the other side of Kamtschatka, of several lands and
islands which extend nearly to the Western Continent of America,
would leave no doubt as to the possibility of the communication, if
these discoveries were properly authenticated, and the lands were in
any degree contiguous. But, even in the supposition of considerable
intervals of sea, is it not possible that there might have been men
who crossed them in search of new regions, or were driven upon them by
bad tempests? Between the Mariana islands and Japan there is, perhaps,
a greater interval of sea than between any of the territories beyond
Kamtschatka and those of America; and yet the Mariana islands were
peopled with inhabitants who could have come from no part but from
the Eastern Continent. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that the
first men who set foot on America landed on some spot north-west of
California; that the excessive cold of this climate obliged them to
remove to the more southern parts of their new abode; that at first
they settled in Mexico and Peru, from whence they afterwards diffused
themselves over all the different parts of North and South America.
Mexico and Peru must be considered as the most ancient inhabited
territories of this continent, being not only the most elevated, but
also the only ones in which the inhabitants were found connected
together in society.
It may also be presumed that the inhabitants of Davis's Straits, and
of the northern parts of Labrador, came from Greenland, being only
separated by these small straits, for the savages of Davis's straits,
and those of Greenland, as we have just remarked, are very similar; and
Greenland might have been peopled by the Laplanders passing thither
from Cape Nord, the intermediate distance being only about 150 leagues.
Besides, as the island of Iceland is almost contiguous to Greenland,
has long been inhabited and frequented by Europeans; and as the Danes
formed colonies in Greenland, it is not wonderful there should be
found men who, deriving their origin from those Danes, were white
and fair-haired. There is some probability also that the white men
along Davis's Straits derive their origin from these Europeans, thus
settled in Greenland, from whence they might easily pass to America, by
crossing the little interval of sea of which this strait is formed.
In colour and in figure we meet with as great a degree of uniformity
in America, as of diversity of men in Africa. From great antiquity
has this part of the world been copiously peopled. The climate is
scorching, yet in different nations it is of a different temperature;
nor, from the descriptions already given, are their manners less
different. From these concurrent causes there subsists a greater
variety of men in Africa than in any other part. If we examine the
difference in the temperature of the African countries, we shall find
that in Barbary, and all the territories near the Mediterranean Sea,
the men are white, or only somewhat tawny; those territories are
refreshed on one hand by the air of the Mediterranean Sea, and on the
other by the snows on Mount Atlas, and are, moreover, situated in
the Temperate Zone, on this side the Tropic; so also all the tribes
between Egypt and the Canary islands have the skin only more or less
tawny. Beyond the Tropic, and on the other side of Mount Atlas, the
heat becomes more violent, and the colour of the inhabitants is more
dark, though still not black. Coming to the 17th or 18th degree of
north latitude we find Senegal and Nubia, where the heat is excessive,
and the natives absolutely black. In Senegal the thermometer rises to
the degree 38, while in France it rarely rises to 30; and in Peru,
situated under the Torrid Zone, it is hardly ever known to pass 25.
We have no observations made with the thermometer in Nubia, but all
travellers agree in representing the heat to be excessive. The sandy
deserts between Upper Egypt and Nubia heat the air to such a degree
that the north wind actually scorches. The east wind also, which is
usually prevalent between the Tropics, does not reach Nubia till it has
crossed the territories of Arabia; therefore that the Nubians should be
black is little cause for wonder; though indeed they are still less so
than those of Senegal, where, as the east wind cannot arrive till it
has traversed all the territories of Africa in their utmost extent, the
heat is rendered almost insupportable.
If we take all that district of Africa comprised between the Tropics,
where the east wind blows most constantly, we shall easily conceive
that the western coasts of this part of the world must, and actually
do, experience a greater degree of heat than those of the eastern
coasts; as the east wind reaches the latter with the freshness which
it receives in passing over a vast sea, whereas before it reaches the
former, it acquires a burning heat, in traversing the interior parts of
Africa. Thus, therefore, the coasts of Senegal, Sierra Leona, Guinea,
and all the western regions of Africa, situated under the Torrid Zone,
are the hottest climates in the world; nor is it by any means so hot on
the eastern coasts, at Mosambique, Mombaza, &c. I have not the smallest
doubt, therefore, but this is the reason that we find the real negroes,
or the blackest men, in the western territories of Africa, and Caffres,
or black men, of a hue more light, in the eastern territories. The
evident difference which subsists between these two species of blacks
proceeds from the heat of their climate, which is not very great in
the eastern, but excessive in the western. Beyond the Tropic, on the
south, the heat is considerably diminished, not only from its situation
as to climate, but from the point of Africa being contracted; and
as that point is surrounded by the sea the air is necessarily more
temperate than it could be in the middle of a continent. The colour of
the inhabitants of this country begins to assume a fairer hue, and they
are naturally more white than black. Nothing affords a more convincing
proof that the climate is the principal cause of the variety in the
human species than the colour of the Hottentots, who could not possibly
be found less black did they not enjoy a more temperate climate.
In this opinion we shall be more confirmed if we examine the other
nations under the Torrid Zone, on the east side of Africa. The
inhabitants of the Maldivia islands, of Ceylon, of the point of the
peninsula of India, of Sumatra, of Malacca, of Borneo, of Celebes,
of the Philippines, &c. are very brown, though not absolutely black,
from all these countries being either islands or peninsulas. In these
climates the heat of the air is temporized by the sea; besides which,
neither the east nor west wind, which reign alternately in that part of
the globe, can reach the Indian Archipelago without passing over seas
of an immense extent. As their heat is not excessive, therefore, all
these islands are peopled with brown men; but in New Guinea we again
meet with red blacks, and who, from the descriptions of travellers,
seem to be absolute negroes, because the country they inhabit forms
a continent to the east, and the wind is more hot than that which
prevails in the Indian Ocean. In New Holland, where the heat of the
climate is not so great, we find people less black, and not unlike
the Hottentots. Do not these negroes and Hottentots, whom we meet
with in the same latitude, and at so great a distance from the other
negroes and Hottentots, evince their colour depends upon the heat of
the climate? That there was ever any communication between Africa and
this southern continent, it is impossible to suppose; and yet in both
we find the same species of men, because the same circumstances occur
which occasion the same degrees of heat.
From the animal creation we may obtain a further confirmation of what
has been above advanced. In Dauphiny, it has been observed that all the
hogs are black; and that on the other side of the Rhone, in Vivarais,
where it is more cold than in Dauphiny, all the hogs are white. There
is no probability that the inhabitants of one of these two provinces
should have agreed to breed none but black hogs, and the other none
but white ones. To me it appears, that this difference arises solely
from the variation in the temperature of the climate, combined,
perhaps, with that of the food of the animals.
The few blacks who have been found in the Philippines, and other
islands of the Indian Ocean, seem to originate from the Papous, or
Negroes of New Guinea, whom the Europeans have not known much longer
than half a century. Dampier discovered the most eastern part in 1700,
and gave it the name of _New Britain_; we are still ignorant of its
extent, yet we know that, so far as has been discovered, it is not very
populous.
In those climates alone, then, where circumstances combine to create
a constant and excessive heat, do we meet with negroes. This heat is
necessary not only to the production, but even to the preservation of
negroes; and where the heat, though violent, is not comparable to that
of Senegal, the negro infants are so susceptible of the impressions of
the air, that there is a necessity for keeping them during the first
nine days in warm apartments; if this precaution is omitted, and they
are exposed to the air soon after their birth, a convulsion in the jaw
succeeds, which preventing them from receiving any sustenance, they
presently die.
In the History of the Academy of Sciences we read, that M. Littre,
in dissecting a negro, in 1702, remarked, that the point of the
glands which was not covered with the prepuce was black, and the rest
perfectly white. From this observation it is evident, that the air is
necessary to produce the blackness of negroes. Their children are born
white, or rather red, like those of other men, but two or three days
after they change to a tawny yellow, which gradually darkens till the
seventh or eighth day, when they are completely black. All children two
or three days after their birth have a kind of jaundice, which in white
children is transitory, and leaves no impression upon the skin; but in
negro children it gives a colour to the skin, and continues to grow
more and more black. M. Kolbe mentions having observed this fact among
the children of Hottentots. This jaundice, however, and the impression
of the air, seem to be only occasional, and not the primary cause of
this blackness; since it is remarked, that the children of negroes
have, the instant of their birth, a blackness in the genitals, and
at the root of the nails. The action of the air and the jaundice may
serve to extend this blackness, but it is certain that the principle of
it is communicated to the children by their parents; that in whatever
country a negro may be born, he will be as black as if he had been
brought forth in his own; and if there is any difference in the first
generation it is imperceptible; from this circumstance, however, we are
not to suppose, that after a certain number of generations, the colour
would not undergo a very sensible change.
Many have been the researches of anatomists respecting this black
colour. Some pretend, that it is neither in the skin, nor in the
epidermis, but in the cellular membrane which is between them; that
this membrane, though washed, and held ever so long in warm water, does
not change colour, while the skin, and the surface of the skin, appear
to be nearly as white as those of other men. Dr. Town, in his letter to
the Royal Society, and a few others, maintain, that the blood is black
in negroes, and from which cause their colour originates; a fact which
I am inclined to believe, from having remarked, that among ourselves
the blood of those who are tawny, yellow, or brown, is proportionally
more black than that of others.
According to M. Barrere, this colour of the negroes is produced by the
bile, which in them is not yellow, but always black as ink; of which
he affirms he received certain proof from several negroes which he had
occasion to dissect at Cayenne. When the bile is diffused, it tinges
the skin of white people yellow; and it is probable, that if the former
were black, the latter would be black also. But as when the overflow
of the bile ceases, the skin recovers its natural whiteness, so on
this principle there is a necessity for supposing that in the negroes
there is always an overflow of bile, or at least that, as M. Barrere
observes, it is so abundant, as naturally to secrete itself in the
epidermis, in a quantity sufficient to communicate this black colour.
It probable that the bile and blood of negroes are more brown than
those of white men, as their skin is more black. But one of these facts
can never be admitted as an explanation of the cause of the other;
for if it is the blood or bile which, by its blackness, communicates
this colour to the skin, then, instead of inquiring why the skin of
negroes is black, we must inquire why their bile or blood is so; and
thus, by deviating from the question, we find ourselves more than ever
remote from the solution of it. For my own part, I own I have always
been of opinion, that the cause which renders a Spaniard more brown
than a Frenchman, and a Moor than a Spaniard, is also the cause which
renders a Negro blacker than a Moor. At present I mean not to enquire
how this cause acts, but only to ascertain that it does act, and that
its effects are the more considerable, in proportion to the force and
continuance of action.
Of the blackness of the skin, the principal cause is the heat of the
climate. When this heat is excessive, as at Senegal, and in Guinea,
the inhabitants are entirely black; when it is rather less violent, as
on the eastern coasts of Africa, they are of a shade more light; when
it becomes somewhat temperate, as in Barbary, Mogul, Arabia, &c. they
are only brown; and in fine, when it is altogether temperate, as in
Europe and in Asia, they are white; and the varieties there remarked
proceed solely from the mode of living. All the Tartars, for example,
are tawny, while the Europeans, who live in the same latitude, are
white. This difference clearly arises from the former being always
exposed to the air; having no towns nor fixed habitations; sleeping
upon the earth, and living coarsely and savagely. These circumstances
are sufficient to render them less white than the Europeans, who want
nothing to render life comfortable and agreeable. Why are the Chinese
whiter than the Tartars, whom they resemble in all their features?
Certainly from the above reasons.
When cold becomes extreme, it produces effects similar to those of
excessive heat. The Samoiedes, Laplanders, and Greenlanders, are very
tawny; and it is even asserted, that some Greenlanders are as black as
those of Africa. Here the two extremes meet. Violent cold and violent
heat produce the same effect upon the skin, because these two causes
act by a quality which they possess in common. Dryness of the air is
this quality; and which cold is as equally productive as intense heat;
by either the skin may be dried, and rendered as tawny as what we find
it among the Laplanders. Cold compresses all the productions of nature;
and thus it is that the Laplanders, who are perpetually exposed to the
rigours of frost, are the smallest of the human species.
The most temperate climate is between the degrees of 40 and 50; where
the human form is in its greatest perfection; and where we ought to
form our ideas of the real and natural colour of man. Situated under
this Zone the civilized countries are, Georgia, Circassia, the Ukraine,
Turkey in Europe, Hungary, South Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France,
and the North of Spain; of all which the inhabitants are the most
beautiful people in the world.
As the principal cause of the colour of mankind, we ought to consider
the climate; the effects of nourishment are less upon the colour, yet
upon the form they are prodigious. Food which is gross, unwholesome, or
badly prepared, produces a degeneracy in the human species; and in all
countries where the people are wretchedly fed, they are ugly, and badly
shaped. Even in France, the inhabitants of country places are more
ugly than those of towns; and I have often remarked, that in villages
where poverty and distress were less prevalent, the people were in
person more shapely, and in visage less ugly. The air and the soil
have also great influence on the form of men, animals, and vegetables.
The peasants who live on hilly grounds are more active, nimble,
well-shaped, and lively, than those who live in the neighbouring
vallies, where the air is thick and unrefined.
Horses from Spain or Barbary cannot be perpetuated in France; in the
very first generation they degenerate, and by the third or fourth they
become downright French horses. So striking is the influence of climate
and food upon animals, that the effects of either are well known, and
though they are less sudden and less apparent upon men, yet, from
analogy, we must conclude they extend to the human species, and that in
the varieties we find therein, they plainly manifest themselves.
From every circumstance may we obtain a proof, that mankind are not
composed of species essentially different from each other; that, on
the contrary, there was originally but one species, which, after being
multiplied and diffused over the whole surface of the earth, underwent
divers changes from the influence of the climate, food, mode of living,
epidemical distempers, and the intermixture of individuals, more or
less resembling each other; that at first these alterations were less
conspicuous, and confined to individuals; that afterwards, from
continued action, they formed specific varieties; that these varieties
have been perpetuated from generation to generation, in the same manner
as deformities and diseases pass from parents to their children, and
that in fine, as they were first produced by a concurrence of external
and accidental causes, and have been confirmed and rendered permanent
by time, and by the continual action of these causes, so it is highly
probable that in time they would gradually disappear, or become
different from what they at present are, if such causes were no longer
to subsist, or if they were in any material point to vary.
_END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME._
T. Gillet, Printer, Wild-court.
* * * * *
Transcriber Note
Paragraphs split by illustrations or tables were rejoined. All obvious
typographical corrections were made. Hyphenation was standardized. On
page 46, the word "ambestos" was assumed to be "asbestos" and changed.
The numbers displayed in the table from pages 121 through 133 appears
to have some errors as the totals shown do not always match the total
obtained for each column. These were left as reported.