INFANCY CONTINUED.

The scurvy, dropsy, and such diseases as proceed from a vitiated state of the blood and other fluids, are the most fatal to mankind; but these fluids depend upon the solids, which are the real organic parts. As we become advanced in life the vessels contract, the muscles lose their strength, and the secretory organs are obstructed; from which causes the blood, and other fluids, become viscid, and occasion those diseases which are generally supposed to arise from vitiated humours. The natural decay of the solids are, therefore, the original causes of those disorders; nevertheless, if the fluids become stagnated, or are obstructed in their circulation, by a contraction of the vessels, they produce alarming symptoms, and soon corrupt and corrode the weakest parts of the solids. Thus do the causes of dissolution continually multiply until they put a period to our existence.

All these causes of decay act continually upon our material existence, and contribute to its dissolution. Nature, however, approaches to this much-dreaded period by slow and imperceptible degrees. Day after day is life consuming, and every hour is some one or other of our faculties, or vital principles, perishing before the rest. Death, therefore, is only the last shade in the picture; and it is probable that man suffers a greater change in passing from youth to age, than from age into the grave. In the instant of the formation of the foetus life is as yet nothing, or next to nothing. It extends and acquires consistence and force as the body increases, and as soon as the latter begins to decrease the former decreases also, till its final extinction. As our life begins by degrees, so by degrees it is terminated.

Why, then, be afraid of death, if our lives have been such as not to make us apprehend the consequences of futurity? Why be afraid of that moment which is preceded by an infinity of others of the same kind? Death is as natural as life, and both happen to us in the same manner, without our having the smallest sense or perception of them. If we enquire of those whose office it is to attend the sick and the dying, we shall find, that, except in a very few acute cases, attended with convulsions, people expire quietly, and without the smallest indication of pain. Even when dreadful agonies seem so attend the afflicted, the spectators are rather terrified than the patients tormented; who, having recovered, after the most violent convulsions, possess not the smallest idea of what had passed, or even what they had suffered.

The greatest number of mankind die, therefore, without feeling the fatal stroke; and of the few who retain their senses to the last, there is hardly one, perhaps, who does not entertain the hope of recovery. Nature, for the happiness of man, has rendered this principle more powerful than reason. A person dying of a disorder which he already knows to be incurable, by repeated instances in others, and is now assured that it is so by the tears of his friends, and by the countenance or departure of the physician, is still buoyed up with the idea of getting over it; the opinion of others he considers as a groundless alarm; the hour of dissolution comes; and while every thing else is, as it were dead, hope is still alive and vigorous.

A sick man will say that he feels himself dying; that he is convinced he cannot recover; but if any person, from zeal, or indiscretion, shall tell him that his end is actually at hand, his countenance instantly changes, and betrays all the marks of surprize and uneasiness. He now seems not to believe, what he had been endeavouring to impress upon others; he had only some doubt, some uneasiness, about his situation; but his hopes were far greater than his fears; and but for the gloomy assiduity, the parade of woe, which generally surrounds a death-bed, and too often embitters the last moments, he would be insensible of his approaching dissolution.

By no means is death so dreadful, therefore, as we suppose it to be. It is a spectre which terrifies us at a distance, but disappears when we approach it more closely. Our conceptions of it are formed by prejudice, and dressed up by fancy. We consider it not only as a misfortune greater than any other, but as one accompanied by the most excruciating anguish. Death, it is said, must be terrible, since it is sufficient to separate the soul from the body; the pain must also be of considerable duration, since time is measured by the succession of our ideas; one minute of pain, in which these ideas succeed each other with a rapidity proportioned to the agony we suffer, must appear longer than a whole age, in which they flow in their usual gentleness and tranquillity. In such philosophy, what an abuse of reason! But for the consequences of it, hardly would it deserve to have its futility exposed. As by such arguments, however, weak minds are deceived, and the aspect of death rendered a thousand times more hideous than it possibly can be; to point out the erroneous principles may be of advantage.

When the soul is originally united to our body, do we experience any extraordinary joy, which delights and transports us? Most certainly not. What reason then can we have to suppose that the separation of the soul from that body may not be effected without pain? From what cause should such pain arise? Shall we fix its residence in the soul, or in the body? Pain of the mind can only be produced by thought, and that of the body is proportioned to its strength or weakness. In the instant of death, the body must be in its weakest state, and therefore if it does experience pain, it must be in a very trifling degree.

Let us now suppose a violent death; that for example, of a man whose head is carried off by a cannon-ball. Can the pain he suffers last longer than a moment? Has he, in the interval of that moment, a succession of ideas so rapid, that he can imagine the pangs he feels are equal to an hour, a day, an age? These points we shall endeavour to discuss.

I own the succession of our ideas is, in reality, the only natural measure of time; and that, in proportion as they flow with more or less uniformity, they appear of longer or shorter duration. But in this measure there is an unit, or fixed point, which is neither arbitrary nor indefinite, but determined by Nature, and correspondent to our organization. Between two ideas which succeed each other, there must be an interval that separates them; however quick one thought may be, a little time is required before it can be followed by another, no succession being possible in an indivisible instant. The same observation holds with respect to the sensations of the body. A transition from pain to pleasure, or even from one pain to another, requires a certain interval. This interval, by which our thoughts and sensations are necessarily separated, is the unit I mention; and it can neither be extremely long, nor extremely short; it must even be nearly upon an equality in its duration, as it depends upon the nature of the mind, and the organization of the body, whose movements can have but one certain degree of celerity. In the same individual, therefore, there can be no succession of ideas so rapid, or so slow, as to produce that enormous difference of duration, by which the pain of a minute is converted into that of an hour, a day, or a century.

A very acute pain, of however short continuance, tends to produce either a swoon, or death. As our organs have only a certain degree of strength, they cannot resist above a certain degree of pain. If that becomes excessive, it ceases, because the body being incapable of supporting it, is still less capable to transmit it to the mind, with which it can hold no correspondence, but by the action of these organs. Here this action ceases, and therefore, all internal sensation must necessarily cease also.

What has already been advanced, is perhaps amply sufficient to evince, that, at the instant of death, the pain is neither excessive nor of long duration; but in order to dispel all fear from the bosom of timidity itself, we shall add a few words more upon the subject. Though excessive pains admit of no reflection, yet signs, at least, of it have been observed in the very moment of a violent death. When Charles XII. received, at Frederickshall, the blow which terminated his exploits and existence, he clapped his hand upon his sword. Since it excluded not reflection, this mortal pang could not, therefore, be excessive. The brave warrior found himself attacked; he reflected that he ought to defend himself; and thence, it is evident, he felt no more than what he might have suffered from an ordinary blow. That this action was nothing more than the result of a mechanical impulse it would be absurd to assert, as it has been evidently shewn, in our description of man, that the most precipitate movements of the passions depend upon reflection, and are nothing more than effects of an habitual exertion of the mind.

If I have rather enlarged on this topic it is only that I might destroy a prejudice so repugnant to the happiness of man. To this prejudice many have fallen victims; and I have myself known several, of the female sex in particular, who, from the very dread of death, have died in reality. Such terrible alarms seem, indeed, to be particular to those whom Nature or education have endowed with superior sensibility, as the gross of mankind look forward to death, if not with indifference at least without terror.

In viewing things as they are consists the spirit of true philosophy. With this philosophy our internal sensations would always correspond, were they not perverted by the illusions of imagination, and by the unfortunate habit of fabricating phantoms of excessive pains and of pleasure. Nothing appears terrible nor charming but what is at distance. To obtain a certain knowledge of either we must have the resolution, or the wisdom, to take a close and particular view of them, and all their extraordinary circumstances will disappear.

If there be any thing necessary to confirm what has been said concerning the gradual cessation of life, we might find it in the uncertainty of the signs of death. By consulting the writers on this subject, and particularly Winslow and Bruhier, we shall be convinced, that between life and death the shade is often so undistinguishable that all the powers of medical art are insufficient to determine upon it. According to them, “the colour of the face, the warmth of the body, the suppleness of the joints, are but equivocal signs of life; and that the paleness of the complexion, the coldness of the body, the stiffness of the extremities, the cessation of all motion, and the total insensibility of the parts, are signs to the full as equivocal of death.” It is also the same with regard to the cessation of the pulse, and of respiration, which are sometimes so effectually kept under, that it is impossible to obtain the smallest perception of either. By carrying a mirror, or candle, to the mouth of a person supposed to be dead, people expect to find whether he breathes or not; but in this experiment there is little certainty; the mirror is often sullied after death has taken place, and remains unclouded while the person is still alive. Neither do burning nor scarifying, noises in the ears, nor pungent spirits applied to the nostrils, give indubitable proofs of the discontinuance of life; many are the instances of persons who have undergone all such trials without shewing any signs of life, and yet, to the astonishment of the spectators, recovered afterwards, without the smallest assistance.

Nothing can be more evident than that life, in some cases, has a near resemblance to death, and therefore that we ought to be extremely cautious of renouncing, and committing too hastily to the grave, the bodies of our fellow-creatures. Neither ten, twenty, nor twenty-four hours are sufficient to distinguish real from apparent death; and there are instances of persons who have been alive in the grave at the end of the second, and even the third day. Why suffer to be interred with precipitation those persons whose lives we ardently wished to prolong? Why, though all men are equally interested in the abolition of it, does the practice still subsist? On the authority of the most able physicians, it incontestably appears, “that the body, though living, is sometimes so far deprived of all vital function, as to have every external appearance of death; that, if in the space of three days, or seventy two hours, no sign of life appears, and on the contrary the body exhales a cadaverous smell, there is an infallible proof of actual death; and that then, though on no account till then, the interment can with safety take place.”

Hereafter we shall have occasion to speak of the usages of different nations with respect to obsequies, interments, and embalments. The greatest part, even of the most savage people, pay more attention than we to their deceased friends. What with us is nothing more than a ceremony, they consider as an essential duty. Far superior is the respect which they pay to their dead: they clothe them, they speak to them, they recite their exploits, they extol their virtues; while we, who pique ourselves on our sensibility, with hardly an appearance of humanity, forsake and fly from them, we neither desire to see, nor have courage nor inclination to speak to them, and even avoid every place which may recall their idea to our minds. Than savages themselves, then, do we, in this respect, discover either more indifference or more weakness.

Having thus given a history of life, and of death, as they relate to the individual, let us now consider them both, as they affect the whole species. Man dies at every age; and though in general the duration of his life is longer than that of most animals, yet it is more uncertain and more variable.

Of late years attempts have been made to ascertain the degrees of such variations, and to establish, by different observations, some certainty as to the mortality of men at different ages. Were such observations sufficiently exact and numerous they would be admirably calculated to give a knowledge of the number of people, their increase, the consumption of provisions, and of a number of other important objects. Many writers of distinguished abilities, and, among others, Halley and Simpson, have given tables of the mortality of the human species; but as their labours have been confined to an examination of the bills of mortality in a few parishes of London, and other large cities, their researches, however accurate, seem, in my opinion, to give a very imperfect idea of the mortality of mankind in general.

In order to give a complete table of this nature it is necessary to scrutinise not only the parish-registers of such towns as London and Paris, where there is a perpetual ingress of strangers and egress of natives, but also those of different country places; that, by comparing the deaths which happen in the one with the deaths which happen in the other, a general conclusion may be formed. M. DuprÉ, of St. Maur, a member of the French academy, executed this project upon twelve different parishes in the country of France, and, three in Paris. Having obtained his permission to publish the tables he has drawn up on this occasion, I do it with the greater pleasure, as they are the only ones from which the probabilities of human life in general can with any certainty be established.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

YEARS OF LIFE.

From these tables many useful conclusions might be drawn. But I shall only consider those which respect the probabilities of the duration of life. It is observable, that in the columns opposite the years 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and other round numbers as 25, 35, &c. the deaths in the country parishes are more numerous than in in the preceding or subsequent columns. The cause of this seeming inconsistency arises from the generality of country people being ignorant of their exact age, and therefore if they die at 58 or 59 in the parish register it is entered 60; and so of other round numbers. From this irregularity the inconvenience is not great, as it may easily be corrected by the manner in which the numbers succeed each other in the Tables.

By the tables in the country parishes it appears, that almost one half of the children die before the age of four years, and by the Paris table not before 16; which great difference; certainly arises from the children being sent into the country to nurse, and consequently increases the number of deaths there in infancy. As likely to come at the truth, I have blended the two tables, and from thence calculated the probabilities of the duration of life as follows:

TABLE of the PROBABILITIES of the
DURATION of HUMAN LIFE.

By this table it appears, that an infant newly born has an equal chance of living eight years; that an infant of one will live 33 years longer; that a child of two will live 38 years longer; that a man of 20 will live 33 years and five months longer; that a man of 30 will live 28 years longer; and so proportionally of every other age.

It is also to be observed, first, that seven years is the age at which the longest duration of life is to be expected, since there is then an equal chance of living 42 years and three months longer; secondly that at the age of 12 one fourth of our existence is gone, as we cannot in reason expect above 38 or 39 years more; thirdly, that we have enjoyed one half of our existence at the age of 28, as we can reckon upon only 28 years more; and lastly, that by the age of 50 three fourths of life are passed, the remaining probability being only for 16 or 17 years.

But these physical truths, however mortifying, may be compensated by moral considerations. A man ought to consider as nothing the first fifteen years of his life. Every thing that happens in that long interval of time is effaced from the memory, or has at least so little connection with the views and objects Which afterwards occupy our thoughts that it gives us no concern. Neither, indeed, have we the game succession of ideas, nor, it maybe said, the same existence. In a moral sense we do not begin to live till we have begun to regulate our thoughts, to direct them towards futurity, and to assume to ourselves a kind of consistency of character conformable to that state which has some relation to what we shall afterwards become. By considering the duration of life in this, the only real point of view, we shall find, that at the age of 25 we have passed but one fourth part of our life; at the age of 38 one half; and that, at the age of 56, there is one fourth of life still remains.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE SENSE OF SEEING.

Having described the parts of which the human body consists, let us now proceed to examine its principal organs; the expansion of the senses, and their several functions; and at the same time, point out the errors to which, through them, we are in some measure subjected by Nature.

The eyes seem to be formed very early in the human embryo. In the chicken also, of all the double organs they are the soonest produced. I have observed in the eggs of several sorts of birds, and in those of lizards, that the eyes were more large, and early in their expansion, than any other parts of a two-fold growth. Though, in viviparous animals, and particularly in man, they are, at first, by no means so large in proportion as in the oviparous, yet they obtain their due formation sooner than any other parts of the body. It is the same with the organ of hearing; the small bones of the ear are entirely formed before any of the other bones have acquired any part of their growth or solidity. Hence it is evident, that the parts of the body, which are furnished with the greatest quantity of nerves, as the ears and eyes, are those which first appear, and which are the soonest brought to perfection.

If we examine the eyes of an infant, a few hours after its birth, we shall discern that it cannot make the smallest use of them; the organ not having acquired a sufficient consistency, the rays of light strike but confusedly upon the retina. Before the sixth week, children turn their eyes indiscriminately upon every object, without appearing to be affected by any, but at about this time they begin to fix them upon the most brilliant colours, and seem peculiarly desirous of turning them towards the light; this exercise does not give any exact notion of objects, but strengthens the eye, and qualifies it for future vision.

The first great error in the sense of seeing, is the inverted representation of objects upon the retina, and, till the sense of feeling has served to undeceive it, the child actually beholds every thing upside down. The second error in early vision is, that every object appears double; from the same object being formed distinctly upon each eye. This illusion like the other, can only be corrected by children from their being in the practice of handling different objects, and from which practice alone it is that they learn things are neither inverted nor double, and custom induces them to believe they see objects in the position the touch represents them to the mind; and therefore, were we denied the sense of feeling, that of seeing would not only deceive us as to the situation, but as to the number of every object around us.

We may easily be convinced that objects appear inverted, (which arises from the structure of the eye) by admitting the light to pass into a darkened room through a small aperture, when the images of the objects without will be represented upon the wall in an inverted position; for, as all the rays which issue from their different points cannot enter the hole in the same extent and position which they had in leaving the object, unless the aperture was as large as the object itself; as every part of the object sends forth its image on all sides; as the rays which from those images flow from all points of the object, as from so many centres, those only can pass through the small aperture which come in opposite directions. Thus the hole becomes a centre for the entire object, through which the rays from the upper, as well as from the lower parts of it, pass in converging directions; and, of consequence, they must cross each other at this centre, and thus represent the objects upon the wall, in an inverted position.

That we, in reality, see all objects double, is also evident; for example, if we hold up a finger, and look with the right eye at an object, it will appear against one particular part of the room, shutting that and looking with the left, it will seem to be on a different part, and if we open both eyes, the object will appear to be placed between the two extremes. But the truth is, the image of the object is formed in both eyes, one of which appears to the right, and the other to the left; and it is from the habit of touching that we suppose we see but one image placed between them both. From which it is clear that we see all objects double, although our imagination forms them single; and that, in fact, we see things where they are not, notwithstanding we have a pretty exact idea of their situation and position; and thus it is that till the sense of feeling has corrected the errors of sight, if instead of two eyes, we had an hundred, we should still fancy the objects single, although they were multiplied an hundred times.

In each eye, therefore, is formed a separate image of every object; and when the two images strike the correspondent parts of the retina, that is, the parts which are always affected at the same time, the object appears single: but, when the images strike the parts of the retina, which are not usually affected together, then it appears double, because we are not habitual to this unusual sensation, and are then somewhat in the situation of infants just beginning to exert the faculty of vision.

M. Chesselden relates the case of a man, who, in consequence of a blow on the head, became squint-eyed, and saw objects double for a long time: but who was at length enabled, by slow and gradual steps, to see them singly as he had formerly done, notwithstanding the squinting remained. Is not this a proof, still more evident, that in reality we see things double, and that it is by habit alone we conceive them to be single? Should it be asked why children require less time, in order to see things single, than persons more advanced in years, whose eyes may have been affected by accident? it might be answered, that the sensations of children, being unopposed by any contradictory habit, these errors are rectified with ease; but that persons who have for many years seen objects single, because they affected the two correspondent parts of the retina, and who now see them double, labour under the disadvantage of having a contrary habit to oppose, and must therefore be a considerable time before it is entirely obliterated.

By the sense of seeing we can form no idea of distances; without aided by the touch, every object would appear to be within our eyes; and an infant, that is as yet a stranger to the sense of feeling, must conceive that every thing it sees exists within itself. The objects only appear to be more or less bulky as they approach to, or recede from the eye; insomuch, that a a fly near the eye will appear larger than an ox at a distance. It is experience alone that can rectify this mistake; and it is by constantly measuring with the hand, and removing from one place to another, that children obtain ideas of distance and magnitude. They have no conception of size but from the extreme rays reflected from the object, of course every thing near appears large, and those at a distance small. The last man in a file of soldiers appears much more diminutive than the one who is nearest to us. We do not, however, perceive this difference, but continue to think him of equal stature; for the number of objects we have seen thus lessened by distance, and found by repeated experience to be of the natural size when we come closer, instantly correct the sense, and therefore we perceive every object nearly in its natural proportion, unless when we observe them in such situations as have not allowed us sufficient experience to correct the illusions of the eye. If, for example, we view men upon the ground, from a lofty tower, or look up to any object upon the top of a steeple, as we have not been in the habit of correcting the sense in that position, they appear to us exceedingly diminished, much more so than if we saw them at the same distance in an horizontal direction.

Though a small degree of reflection may serve to convince us of the truth of these positions, yet it may not be amiss to corroborate them by facts which cannot be disputed. M. Chesselden, having couched for a cataract a lad of thirteen years of age, who had from his birth been blind, and thus communicated to him the sense of seeing, was at great pains to mark the progress of his visual powers; his observations were afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions. This youth was not absolutely and entirely blind: Like every other person, whose vision is obstructed by a cataract, he could distinguish day from night and even black from white, but of the figure of bodies he had no idea. At first the operation was performed only upon one of his eyes, and when he saw for the first time, so far was he from judging of distances, that he supposed (as he himself expressed it) every thing he saw touched his eyes, in the same manner as every thing he felt touched his skin. The objects that pleased him most were those whose surfaces were plain and the figures regular, though he could in no degree judge of their different forms, or assign why some were more agreeable to him than others. His ideas of colours during his former dark state were so imperfect, that when he saw them in reality he could hardly be persuaded they were the same. When such objects were shewn him as he had been formerly familiar with by the touch, he beheld them with earnestness, in order to know them again, but as he had too many to retain at once the greatest number were forgotten, and for one thing which he knew, after seeing it, there were a thousand, according to his own declaration, of which he no longer possessed the smallest remembrance. He was very much surprised to find that those persons, and those things, which he had loved best, were not the most pleasing to his sight; nor could he help testifying his disappointment in finding his parents less handsome than he had conceived them to be. Before he could distinguish that pictures resembled solid bodies above two months elapsed; till then he only considered them as surfaces diversified by a variety of colours; but when he began to perceive that these shadings actually represented human beings, he expected also to find their inequalities; and great was his surprise to find smooth and even what he had supposed a very unequal surface; and he inquired whether the deception existed in feeling or seeing. He was then shewn a miniature portrait of his father, which was contained in his mother’s watch-case, and though he readily perceived the resemblance, yet he expressed his amazement how so large a face could be comprised in so small a compass; to him it appeared as strange as that a pint vessel should contain a bushel. At first he could bear but a very small quantity of light, and every object appeared larger than the life; but in proportion as he observed objects that were in reality large, he conceived the others to be equally diminished. Beyond the limits of what he saw he had no conception of any thing. He knew that the apartment he occupied was only a part of the house, and yet he could not imagine how the latter should be larger than the former. Before the operation he formed no great expectations of the pleasure he should receive from the new sense he was promised, excepting that thereby he might be enabled to read and write. He said among other things, that he could enjoy no greater delight from walking in the garden, because there he already walked at his ease, and was acquainted with every part of it. He also remarked that his blindness gave him one advantage over the rest of mankind, namely, that of being able to walk in the night with more confidence and security. No sooner, however, had he began to enjoy his new sense than he was transported beyond measure; he declared that every new object was a new source of delight, and that his pleasure was so great he had not language to express it. About a year after, he was carried to Epsom, where there is a beautiful and extensive prospect; with this he seemed greatly charmed; and the landscape before him he called a new method of seeing. He was couched in the other eye a year after the former, and the success was equally great. Every object appeared larger when he looked at it with the second eye to what it did with the other; and when he looked at any thing with both eyes it appeared twice as large as when he saw but with one, though he did not see double, or at least he shewed no marks from which any such conclusion might be drawn.

Mr. Chesselden instances several other persons who were in the same situation with this lad, and on whom he performed the same operation; and he assures us, that on first obtaining the use of their eyes they expressed their perceptions in the same manner, though less minutely; and that he particularly observed of them all, that as they had never had any occasion to move their eyes while deprived of sight, they were exceedingly embarrassed in learning how to direct them to the objects they wished to observe.

As from particular circumstances we cannot from a just idea of distance, and as we cannot judge of the magnitude of objects but by the largeness of the angle, or rather the image, which they form in our eyes, we are necessarily deceived as to the size of such objects. Every man knows how liable we are, in travelling by night, to mistake a bush which is at hand for a tree at a distance, or a tree at a distance for a bush which is at hand. In like manner, if we cannot distinguish objects by their figure we cannot judge of distance or size. In this case a fly, passing with rapidity before our eyes, will appear to be a bird at a considerable distance; and an horse standing in the middle of a plain will appear no bigger than a sheep till we have discovered that it is a horse, and then we shall recognize it to be as large as life.

Whenever, therefore, we find ourselves benighted in an unknown place, where upon account of the darkness no judgment is to be formed of distance, or figures of the objects that may present themselves, we are every moment in danger of being misled with respect to our ideas of such objects. Hence proceeds that internal fear and dread which most men experience from the obscurity of night, and of those strange and hideous spectres and gigantic figures which so many persons tell us they have seen. Though such figures, it is commonly asserted, exist solely in the imagination, yet they may appear literally to the eye, and be in every respect seen as described to us; for when we reflect that whenever we cannot judge of an unknown object but by the angle which it forms in the eye, this object is magnified in proportion to its propinquity; and that if it appears at the distance of twenty or thirty paces to be only a few feet high, when advanced within a short space of it, it will seem to be of considerable magnitude. At this the spectator must naturally be astonished and terrified, till he approaches and knows it by feeling; for in the very instant that he has an actual perception of what it is, the tremendous form it assumed to the eye will diminish, and it will appear in no other than its real and absolute form. If, on the other hand, he is afraid to approach it, and flies from the spot with precipitation, the only idea he can have of it will be that of the image which had been formed in his eye; the image of a figure he had seen, gigantic in its size, and horrible in its form. The prejudice with respect to spectres, therefore, originates from Nature, and depend not, as some philosophers have supposed, solely upon the imagination.

When we cannot form an idea of distance, by the knowledge of the intermediate space between us and any particular object, we endeavour to distinguish the form of that object, in order to judge of its size; but when we cannot perfectly distinguish the figures, and at the same time behold a number of objects, whose forms are correspondent, we conceive those which are most brilliant are most proximate, and those most obscure are most remote; a notion which is not unoften the source of very singular mistakes. In a multitude of objects disposed in a right line, as the lamps upon the road from Versailles to Paris, of which, as we cannot judge of the proximity or remoteness but by the quantity of light they transmit to the eye, it often happens that when examined at the distance of the eighth of a league, we see all the lamps situated on the right hand instead of the left, on which they are in reality situated. This fallacious appearance is produced from the above-mentioned cause, for as the spectator has no evidence of the distance he is from the lamps, but by the quantity of light they emit, so he conceives that the most brilliant lamps are those which are the first and the nearest to him. Now if some of the first lamps happen to be dull and obscure, and any one of the others particularly bright, that one would appear to be first and the rest behind, whatever was their real situation; and this seeming transposition would be solely owing to the supposed change of their situation from the left hand to the right; for to conceive to be before what is actually behind in a long file, is to see on the right what is situated on the left, or on the left what is situated on the right.

We may fairly consider sight as a species of touching, though very different from what we commonly understand by that sense; for in order to exercise the latter we must be near the object, whereas we can touch with the eye as far as the light the object contains will make an impression, or its figure form an angle therein. This angle, when the object is viewed at the greatest distance, is about the 3436th part of its diameter, therefore an object of a foot square is not visible beyond 3436 feet, or a man of five feet high at a greater distance than 17180 feet. But the extent of vision is in some measure influenced by the light which surrounds us, and we should be enabled to see any object in the night at 100 times greater distance than in the day, provided it was equally illuminated; thus, for instance, we can perceive a lighted candle at full two leagues in the night, supposing the diameter of the luminary to be one inch, whereas in the day we should not be able to discern it beyond the proportion of the above ratio; and as this is a circumstance which attends all objects when viewed at those different periods, we may conclude that one principal reason for our not being able to discern things at a greater distance, is the brilliancy of the light which fills up the intermediate space, and so destroys the reflected rays from those still more distant objects. When we are surrounded with strength of light the objects near make a forcible impression on the retina of the eye, and obliterate those far off, which are weak and faint; and, on the contrary, if we view a luminous body in the night, even at a considerable distance, that becomes perfectly visible, while those which are near are scarcely discernible. From these reasons it is, that a man at the bottom of a deep pit can see the stars, or, by employing a long tube in a dark room, may obtain some effects from the telescope in the middle of the day. From this it is evident, that if bodies were furnished with more strength of light they would be visible at greater distances, although the angle was not increased, for a small candle, which burns bright, is seen much farther off than a flambeau that is dim. Of these facts, relative to the influence of light, we have a still stronger proof in the variation between a microscope and telescope, both of them instruments of the same kind, increasing the visible angles of objects, whether they be really minute or rendered so by distance, and yet the latter does not magnify beyond a thousand times, whereas the former will exceed a million, and this difference plainly arises solely from the degree of light, for could the distant object be additionally illuminated, telescopes would have the same effect upon distant objects as microscopes have upon small bodies. But it is only by comparing the size of the angle formed in the retina of the eye, the degree of light which illuminates the adjacent and intermediate objects, and the strength of light which proceeds from, or is reflected by the object itself, that we can conclude upon the distance at which any particular body will be visible.

The power of seeing objects at a distance is very rarely equal in both eyes. When this inequality is great, the person so circumstanced generally shuts that eye with which he sees the least, and employs the other with all its power, and which is one cause of squinting. The object does not appear doubly distinct, by both eyes being placed upon it although they are equally strong, but has frequently been proved not to exceed a 13th part more than if beheld with one; and this is supposed to arise from the two optic nerves uniting near the place they came out of the skull and then separating by an obtuse angle before they enter the eyes; but as the motion made by the impression of objects cannot pass to the brain without passing this united part, the two motions must therefore be combined, and, consequently, cannot act with that force as though they were distinct; but from repeated experiments seem to bear the proportion above stated.

There are many reasons to suppose that short-sighted persons see objects larger than others; and it is a certain truth that they see them less. I am myself short-sighted, and my left-eye is stronger than my right. A thousand times have I experienced, upon looking at any object, as the letters of a book, that they appear least to the weakest eye; and that, when I place the book so that the letters appear double, the images of the left-eye, are greater than those of the right. Several others, I have examined, who were in similar circumstances, and I have always found, that the eye which saw every object best, saw it also largest. This may be ascribed to particular habits; for near-sighted people being accustomed to approach close to the object, and to view but a small part of it at a time, they acquire a small standard for magnitude, and when the whole of the object is seen, it necessarily appears smaller to them than to others, whose vision is more enlarged.

There have been many instances of persons becoming short-sighted on a sudden, therefore attributing it to the roundness or prominence of the eye is by no means certain. Mr. Smith, in his Optics, speaks of a young man that became short-sighted as he quitted a cold bath, and who was under the necessity of using a concave glass all his life after; and it cannot be supposed that the vitreous humours were instantly inflated so as to cause this difference in vision. Short-sightedness may arise from the position of the various parts of the eye, especially the retina, from a less degree of sensibility in the retina, or the smallness of the pupil. In the two first cases a concave glass may be used to advantage, but yet objects will not be seen so far, or so distinct, through these glasses as others will perceive with the eye alone, for as short-sighted persons see objects in a diminished form, the concave glass diminishes them still farther.

Infants having their eyes smaller than those of adults, must of consequence, see objects smaller also. For as the image formed on the back of the eye must be large, as the eye is capacious, so infants, having it not so great, cannot have so large a picture of the object. This may likewise be a reason, why they are unable to see so distinctly, or at such distances, as persons who have attained the years of maturity, for as objects appear less they must sooner become invisible.

Old people see bodies close to them very indistinctly, but bodies at a great distance from them with more precision, than young ones. This may happen from an alteration in the coats, or perhaps the humours of the eye; and not, as is supposed, entirely from their diminution. The cornea, for instance, may become too rigid to adapt itself, and take a proper convexity for seeing near objects, as a flatness must be occasioned by drying that will be sufficient of itself to render their eyes more calculated for distant vision. Although clear and distinct are frequently confounded by writers on optics, yet they are very different; for we may be said, for instance, to clearly see a tower, as soon as we get a view of it, but we must approach near enough to distinguish its component parts before we see it distinctly. Men in years see clearly, but not distinctly; they can discern large bodies at a distance, but cannot distinguish small objects, as the characters in a book, without the help of magnifying glasses. On the contrary, short-sighted people see small objects distinctly, but need the aid of concave glasses to reduce large ones. Much light is also necessary for clear sight, while a small quantity is sufficient for distinct vision.

When an object is extremely brilliant, or we fix our eyes too long upon the same object, the organ is hurt and fatigued, vision becomes indistinct, and the image of the object, having made too violent an impression, appears painted on every thing we look at, and mixes with every object that occurs. How dangerous the looking upon bright and luminous objects is to the sight, is evident from the effect it has on the inhabitants of countries which are covered for the greatest part of the year with snow; and travellers, who cross those countries, are obliged to cover their eyes with crape. In the sandy plains of Africa, the reflection of the light is so strong, that it is impossible for the eye to sustain the effects of it. Such persons therefore, as write, or read for any continuance, should chase a moderate light, for though it may seem insufficient at first, yet the eye will gradually become accustomed to the shade; and at any rate, it will be less injured by too little light than by too much.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE SENSE OF HEARING.

As the sense of hearing, as well as that of seeing, gives us perceptions of remote objects, so it is subject to similar errors, and may deceive us, when we cannot rectify by the touch, the ideas which it excites. It communicates no distinct intelligence of the distance from whence a sounding body is heard: a great noise far off, and a small one near, produce the same sensation, and, unless we receive aid from some other sense, we can never distinctly tell whether the sound be a great or a small one. It is not till we have, by experience, become acquainted with any particular sound that we can judge of the distance from whence we hear it; but if, for example, we hear the sound of a bell, we are at no great loss to determine its distance, any more than we are of that of a cannon from the report, judging in both cases from similar sounds, which we have been previously acquainted with.

Every body that strikes against another produces a sound which is simple in bodies non-elastic, but is often repeated in such as are elastic. If we strike a bell, a single blow produces a sound, which is repeated while the sonorous body continues to vibrate. These undulations succeed each other so fast, that the ear supposes them one continued sound; whereas, in reality, they form many. A circumstance of this kind happened to myself, for lying on the bed half asleep, I distinctly counted five strokes of the hammer upon the bell of the clock, and rising immediately found it was but the hour of one, and was convinced by examining the machinery that it had struck no more. A person, therefore, who should for the first time, hear the toll of a bell, would very probably be able to distinguish these breaks of sound; and, in fact, we can readily ourselves perceive remission in sounds.

Sounding bodies are of two kinds; those unelastic ones, which being struck, return but a single sound; and those more elastic returning a succession of sounds, which uniting together form a tone. This tone may be considered as a number of sounds produced one after the other by the same body, as we find in a bell, which continues to sound for some time after it is struck. A continuing tone may be also produced from a non-elastic body, by repeating the blow quick and often, as when we beat a drum, or draw a bow along the string of a fiddle.

Considering the subject in this light, we shall find the number of blows or quickness of repetition will have no effect in altering the tone, but only make it more even or more distinct, whereas if we increase the force of the blow by striking the body with double the weight, this will produce a tone twice as loud as the former. From hence we may infer, that all bodies give a louder and graver tone, not in proportion to the number of times they are struck, but to the force that strikes them. And if this be so, those philosophers who make the tone of a sonorous body, a bell, or the string of an harpsichord, for instance, to depend upon the number only of its vibrations, and not the force, have mistaken what is only an effect for a cause. A bell, or an elastic string, can only be considered as a drum beaten; and the frequency of the blows can make no alteration whatsoever in the tone. The largest bells, and the longest and thickest strings, have the most forcible vibrations; and, therefore, their tones will be more loud and more grave in proportion to the size and weight of the body with which they are struck.

If we strike a body incapable of vibration with a double force, or a double mass of matter, it will produce a sound doubly grave. Music has been said, by the ancients, to have been first invented from the blows of different hammers on an anvil. Suppose then we strike an anvil with a hammer of one pound weight, and then with a hammer of two pounds, it is plain that the latter will produce a sound twice as grave as the former. But if we strike with a two pound hammer, and then with a three pound, the last will produce a sound only one third more grave than the former. If we strike with a three, and then with a four, it will likewise follow that the latter will be a quarter part more grave than the former. Now, in the comparing between all those sounds, it is obvious that the difference between one and two is more easily perceived than between two and three, three and four, or any numbers succeeding in the same proportion. The succession of sounds will be, therefore, pleasing in proportion to the ease with which they may be distinguished. That sound which is double the former, or in other words, the octave to the preceding tone, will be the most pleasing harmony. The next to that, which is as two to three, will be most agreeable. And thus universally, those sounds whose differences may be most easily compared are the most agreeable.

It is most certain that the cause of pleasure in all our senses originates from the justness of proportion, and that disproportion never creates a pleasing sensation. The lad whom Mr. Chesselden restored to sights was at first most delighted with those objects which were regular and smooth on the surface; from this it is plain that the ideas we entertain of beauty from the eye originates from regularity and proportion; it is the same with the sense of feeling, smooth, round, and uniform bodies are more pleasing than those which are rough and irregular; why should not therefore the same preference be given by the ear to the proportion of sounds?

Sound has, in common with light, the property of being extensively diffused; and also admits of reflection. The laws of this reflection, it is true, are less understood: all we know is, that sound is reflected by hard bodies, and that their being hollow, sometimes increases the reverberation. A wall or a mountain sometimes reflects sounds so distinct that we are almost induced to suppose it proceeds from them rather than from an opposite quarter. Vaults and hollow rocks also produce distinct echoes.

The internal part of the ear is particularly formed for reflecting sounds, and may, in some measure, be compared to the cavern of a rock. In this cavity sounds are repeated, and by that means conveyed to the membranous part of the lamina, which being an expansion of the auditory nerves transmits them to the mind. The internal cavity of the ear, which is fashioned out in the temporal bone, like a cavern cut into a rock, seems to be fitted for the purposes of echoing sound with the greatest precision.

One of the most common complaints in old age is deafness, which probably proceeds from the rigidity of the nerves in the labyrinth of the ear, augmenting as we advance in years, and when the membranous part of the lamina becomes ossified deafness is the consequence, and is in that case incurable. It sometimes happens from a stoppage of the wax, but it may then be relieved by art. In order to know whether the defect be an internal or art external one, let the deaf person put a repeating watch into his mouth, and if he hears it strike, he may be assured that his disorder proceeds from an external cause, and may be, in some measure, relieved.

It often happens, that people with bad voices, and unmusical ears, hear better with one ear than the other, and suspecting there might be some analogy between the ears and eyes, as those who squint have more strength in one eye than the other, I made several experiments, and always found their defect in judging properly of sounds proceeded from the inequality of their ears, and their receiving by both at the same time unequal sensations, and those persons who hear false also sing false, without knowing it. They also frequently deceive themselves with regard to the side from whence the sound comes, generally supposing the noise to come on the part of the best ear. This, however, is only applicable to those who are born with a defect in the hearing.

Such as are hard of hearing reap the same advantage from the trumpet made for this purpose that short-sighted persons do from concave glasses. As the sight is affected with age so is the hearing, and equally requires the assistance of art. Trumpets for assisting hearing might be easily enlarged, so as to increase sounds, in the same manner that the telescope does bodies; but they could be used to advantage only in places of solitude and stillness, as the neighbouring sounds would mix with the more distant ones, and the whole would produce in the ear nothing but tumult and confusion.

Hearing is a much more necessary sense to man than to any other animal. In the latter it is only a warning against danger, or an encouragement to mutual assistance. In man, it is the source of most of his pleasures, and without it the rest of his senses would be of little benefit. A man born deaf must necessarily be dumb, and his whole sphere of knowledge must be bounded by sensual objects. We shall here notice a singular instance of a young man, who, born deaf, at the age of 24 suddenly acquired the faculty of hearing. The account, which is given in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, 1703, page 18, is in substance as follows:

“A young man, of the town of Chartres, aged about 24, the son of a tradesman, who had been deaf and dumb from his birth, began to speak of a sudden, to the utter astonishment of the whole town. He gave his friends to understand, that for three or four months before, he had heard the sound of the bells, and was greatly surprised at this new and unknown sensation. After some time a kind of water issued from his left ear, and he then heard perfectly well with both. During these three months he listened attentively to all he heard, and accustomed himself to speak softly the words pronounced by others. He laboured hard in perfecting himself in the pronunciation, and in the ideas attached to every sound. At length, supposing himself qualified to break silence, he declared that he could speak, though as yet but imperfectly. Soon after some able divines questioned him concerning his ideas of his past state, and principally with respect to God, his soul, the moral beauty of virtue and deformity of vice. Of these, however, he did not appear to have the slightest conception. He had gone to mass indeed with his parents, had learned to sign himself with the cross, to kneel down, and to assume all the external signs of devotion; but he did all this without comprehending the intention or the cause. He had no idea even of death, but led a life of pure animal instinct, and though entirely taken up with sensual objects, and such as were present, he yet did not seem to have made any reflections upon them. The young man was not, however, in want of understanding, but the understanding of a man deprived of all intercourse with society is so very confined, that the mind is, in some measure, totally under the control of its immediate sensations.”

It is possible, nevertheless, to communicate ideas to deaf men, and even to give them precise notions of general subjects, by means of signs, and by writing. A person born deaf, may be taught to read, to write, and even by the motion of the lips to understand what is said to him; a plain proof how much the senses resemble, and may supply the defects of each other.

On this subject it may not be improper to quote a fact, of which I was myself a witness. One M. Pereire, a native of Portugal, who had made it his particular study to teach persons born deaf and dumb, brought to my house a young man who was thus unhappily circumstanced. He was at the age of nineteen, in the month of July, 1746, when M. Pereire undertook to teach him to speak and read. More than four months had not elapsed, when he was capable of pronouncing syllables and words; and in the space of ten months, he perfectly understood, and could, with tolerable distinctness, pronounce about thirteen hundred different words. This education, so favourably begun, was interrupted for nine months by the absence of the master; who then found him far less intelligent than he had left him. His pronunciation was vitiated, and of the words he had learned most of, he retained not the smallest remembrance. M. Pereire accordingly renewed his instructions in the month of February, 1748; and from that time he never left him till June 1749. At one of the meetings of the French Academy this young man was brought them, and had several questions proposed to him in writing. To these his answers, whether written or verbal, were highly satisfactory. His pronunciation, indeed, was slow, and the sound of his voice was harsh; but at these defects there is little cause to wonder, as it is by imitation alone that our organs are enabled to form precise, soft, and well-articulated sounds, and, as this young man was deaf, he could not be expected to imitate what he did not hear; but which harshness, by the assiduity and skill of his master, might, however, in some degree, be corrected afterwards.

In the above case, the expedition of the master, and the progress of the pupil, who indeed seemed to be no wise deficient in point of natural ability and understanding, are an ample proof, that persons born deaf and dumb may, by art, be brought to converse with other men; and I am persuaded that, had this young man been instructed so early as at the age of seven or eight, he would have attained as great a number of ideas as mankind possess in general.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE SENSES IN GENERAL.

The animal body is composed of different matters, of which some are insensible, as the bones, the fat, the blood, &c. and others, as the membranes and the nerves, appear to be active substances, on which depend the action of every member. The nerves are the immediate organs of the mind, but which may be said to diversify from a difference in disposition, insomuch, that according to their position, arrangement, and quality, they transmit to the mind different kinds of sentiment, which have been distinguished by the name of sensations, and which appear, in effect, to have no resemblance to each other. Nevertheless, if we consider that all external senses are only nervous membranes, differently placed and disposed; that the nerves are the general organs of feeling, and that in the animal body, no other substance is possessed of this property, we shall be led to believe that the senses, having all one common principle, and the nerves proceeding from the same substance, though in various forms, the sensations which result from them are not so essentially different as they at first appear.

The eye ought to be regarded as an expansion of the optic nerve, whose position being more exterior than that of any other nerve, has the most quick and the most delicate sensation. It will be moved, therefore, by the smallest particles of matter, as those of light; and will consequently give us sensations of distant bodies, provided they produce or reflect those small particles. The ear is not placed so exteriorly as the eye, and in which there not being so great an expansion of nerves, will not be possessed of the like degree of sensibility, nor will it be affected by particles more gross, as those which form sounds, and will give us sensations of such distant objects as can put those particles in motion. As they are much grosser than those of light, and have less quickness, they cannot extend themselves so far; and consequently the ear will not give us sensations of objects so distant as those which the eye communicates. The membrane, which is the seat of smell, being still less furnished with nerves than the ear, it will only give us sensations of particles of matter which are more gross and less remote, such as the odour from bodies, which may be said to be the essential oils which exhale and float in the air, as light bodies swim upon the water. As the nerves are also in less quantity, and more divided over the tongue, and palate, and the odoriferous parts are not strong enough to affect them, the oily or saline parts must detach themselves from other bodies, and lodge upon the tongue to produce the sensation of taste. This sense differs materially from that of smelling, because the last brings to us sensations of things at a certain distance, but the former requires a kind of contact, which operates by the means of the fusion of certain parts of matter, such as salts, oils, &c. In short, as the nerves are minutely divided, and as the skin affords them but a very thin covering, no particles of matter so small as those which form light, sound, or odours, can affect them; and the sense of feeling gives us no sensation of distant objects, but of those only whose contact is immediate.

It appears, therefore, that the difference between our senses is occasioned by the more or less exterior position of the nerves, and of their greater or smaller quantity in the different organs. It is for this reason that a nerve, when irritated by a stroke, or uncovered by a wound, gives us often the sensation of light, without the assistance, of the eye; and from the same cause we often experience sensations of sound, though the ear be not affected by any thing exterior.

When the particles of luminous or sonorous matters are re-united in great quantities, they form a kind of solid body, that produces different kinds of sensations, which appear not to have any relation with the first. The particles which compose light being collected in great quantities, affect not only the eyes but also the nervous parts of the skin, and produce the sensation of heat, which is a sentiment, different from the first, though originating from the same cause. Heat, then, is a sensation arising from a contact with light, which acts as a solid body, or as a mass of matter in motion. The action of light, like other matters in motion, is evident when we expose, light bodies to the focus of a burning glass; the action of the light communicates before even it heats them, a motion by which they are disturbed and displaced. Heat, then, acts as solid bodies act upon each other, since it is capable of displacing light matters, and communicating to them a movement of impulsion.

The like happens when the sonorous particles are collected in great quantities; they produce sensible agitation, which is very different from the action of sound upon the ear. Any violent explosion, as a loud clap of thunder, shakes us, and communicates a kind of trembling to all the neighbouring bodies. Sound then also acts as a solid body, for it is not the agitation of the air which causes this tremulous motion, since even at that time we do not remark that it is accompanied with the wind; besides, however strong the wind may be, it never produces such violent agitations. It is by this action of the sonorous particles that a cord in vibration sets the next in motion; and we ourselves feel, when the noise is violent, a kind of fluttering very different from the sensation of sound by the ear, although it be an effect of the same cause.

All the difference in our sensations are produced by the greater or smaller number, and by the more or less exterior position of the nerves, which is the cause that some of our senses, as the eye, ear, and smell, may be affected by the small particles which exhale from particular bodies; others, as tasting and feeling, require actual contact, or more gross emanations, so as to form a solid mass; and it is this feeling which gives us the sensation of solidity, or fluidity, and of the heat of bodies.

A fluid differs from a solid, because it has not any particles gross enough to admit us to grasp it on different sides at one time. The particles which compose fluids cannot touch each other but at one point, or so few points, that no part can have any considerable adliesion with another. Solid bodies, reduced even into an impalpable powder, do not absolutely lose their solidity, because the parts, touching each other by many sides, preserve a degree of cohesion; and this is the reason why we can make them up in masses, and squeeze them together.

The sense of feeling is spread over the whole body, but employs itself differently in different parts. The sensation which results from feeling is excited by the contact of some foreign body to that of our own. If we apply a foreign body against the breast or shoulder we shall feel it, but without having a single idea of its form, because the breast or shoulder touches but one side only. It is the same with respect to all other parts which cannot bend themselves round or embrace at one time many parts of foreign bodies. Those parts of our body, which, like the hand, are divided into many flexible and moveable parts, and can apply themselves at one time upon different sides of a foreign body, are those only which can give us the ideas of their form and size.

It is not, therefore, because there are a greater quantity of nervous tufts at the extremity of the fingers than in any other part of the body, that the hand is, in effect, the principal organ of feeling, but merely because it is divided into many parts all moveable, all flexible, all acting at the same time, and are all obedient to the will; and which alone gives us distinct ideas of the figure and form of bodies. Feeling is no more than a contact of superficies, and the superficies of the hand are greater, in proportion, than that of any other part of the human body, because there is not any one which is so greatly divided. This advantage, when added to those derived from the flexibility of the fingers, suffices to render this part the most perfect organ to give us the exact and precise ideas of the form of bodies, and, if the hand had twenty fingers, it is not to be doubted but that the sense of feeling would be infinitely more perfect; and if we should suppose that it were divided into an infinity of parts we should have, even in the very moment of the touch, exact and precise ideas of the figure and difference of bodies, however small. If, on the contrary, the hand were without fingers, we should have but very imperfect and confused knowledge of the objects which surround us.

Animals which have hands appear to be the most acute; apes do things so resembling the mechanical actions of man that they seem to be actuated by the same sensations; but those animals which are deprived of hands having not any part divided and flexible enough to be able to twist round the superficies of bodies, they cannot have any precise notion either of the form or size of them. It is for this reason that we often see them frightened at objects which they ought to be the best acquainted with. The principal organ of their feeling is the muzzle, because it is divided in two parts by the mouth, and because the tongue serves them for touching bodies, and turning them, which they do over and over again, before they take them between their teeth. It may also be conjectured, that animals, which, as the scuttle-fish, the polypus, and many insects, have a great number of arms or paws, which they can unite and join, may also have an advantage over others, in knowing how to chuse what is most agreeable to them. Fishes, therefore, whose bodies are covered with scales, ought to be the most stupid of all animals, for they cannot have any knowledge of the form of bodies; and their sense of feeling must be very obtuse, since they cannot feel but through the scales. Thus all animals, whose bodies have no divided extremities, as arms, legs, paws, &c. will have much less sense of feeling than others. Serpents, however, are less stupid than fishes, because, although they have no extremities, and are covered with a hard and scaly coat, they have the faculty of bending round foreign bodies, and by that means obtaining some conception of their form and magnitude.

The two great obstacles to the exercise of the sense of feeling then are, first, the uniformity of the figure of the body of the animal, or the defect of the different divided and flexible parts; and secondly, the cloathing of the skin, whether with hair, feathers, scales, shells, &c. The more this cloathing is hard and solid, the less the sentiment of feeling will be; and the finer and more delicate the skin, the sense of feeling will be the more quick and exquisite. Women, among other advantages over men, have their skin more fine, and the sense of feeling more delicate.

The foetus in the womb of the mother, has a very delicate skin; it must therefore feel every exterior impression in the most acute manner; but as it swims in a liquid, and as liquids break the action of all the causes which may occasion any shock, it can but very seldom be injured, and never without some violent shock be received by the mother. Although the sense of feeling depends, in a great measure upon the fineness of the skin, yet, as it can have but little exercise in the foetus state, so can it have but little sensation arising from feeling.

In a new-born infant, the hands remain as useless as in the foetus, because, by swaddling they are not permitted to make use of them, till the end of six or seven weeks; by this absurd custom, we retard the unfolding of this important sense on which all our knowledge depends; and therefore we should act more wisely, were we to allow the infant the free use of its hands the moment of its birth, as it would then sooner acquire ideas of the form of things; and who knows how far our first ideas have an influence over our subsequent ones? One man, perhaps, possesses more ingenuity, or capacity than another, merely because in his earliest infancy he was allowed to make a greater and readier use of this sense. As soon as children are indulged with the liberty of their hands, they endeavour to touch whatever is presented to them. They take pleasure in handling every thing they are capable of grasping; they seem as if desirous to find out the form of bodies, by feeling them on every side; and they amuse or instruct themselves in this manner with new objects. And which predilection for novelty remains our favourite amusement through life.

It is by feeling alone that we can attain any complete and certain intelligence, and it is by that alone, all the other senses are prevented from being perpetual sources of illusion and error. But in what manner is this important sense developed? In what manner are our first ideas attained? Have we not forgot every thing that passed during the cloud of infancy? How shall we trace our thoughts back to their origin? Even in attempting thus to trace them, is there not presumption? There is, and were the object in view of less importance, with justice might it be stigmatized, but as the mind cannot be employed in a more noble research, every effort may surely be exerted in so important a contemplation.

Let us suppose, then, a man newly brought into existence, whose body and organs were perfectly formed, but who, awaking amidst the productions of Nature, is an utter stranger to himself and every thing he perceives. Of a man thus circumstanced what would be the first emotions, the first sensations, the first opinions? Were he himself to give us a detail of his conceptions at this period, how would he express them? Might it not be in some measure as follows? And here let us suppose such a man to speak for himself.

“Well do I recollect that joyful, anxious moment, when I first became conscious of my own existence; I knew not what I was, where I was, nor from whence I came. On opening my eyes, what an addition to my surprise! The light of day, the azure vault of heaven, the verdure of the earth, the transparency of the waters, all employed, all animated my spirits, and filled me with inexpressible delight.

“At first, I imagined that all those objects were within me, and formed a part of myself. Impressed with this idea, I turned my eyes toward the sun, whose splendour instantly dazzled and overpowered me. Involuntarily I closed my eye-lids, though not without a slight sensation of pain; and, during this short interval of darkness, I imagined that I was about to sink into nothing.

“Full of affliction and astonishment at this great change, I was roused by a variety of sounds. The whistling of the breezes, and the melody of birds, formed a concert, of which the soft impression pervaded the inmost recesses of my soul. I continued to listen, and was persuaded, that this music was actually within me.

“So much was I engrossed with this new kind of existence, that I entirely forgot the light part of my being, which I had known the first, till again I opened my eyes. What joy to find myself once more in possession of so many brilliant objects! The present pleasure surpassed the former, and for a time suspended the charming effect of sound.

“I turned my eyes upon a thousand different objects, I soon found that I could lose and restore them at pleasure; and with a repetition of this new power I continued to amuse myself.

“I began to see without emotion, and to hear without confusion, when a light breeze, communicated a new sensation of pleasures by wafting its perfumes to my nostrils, and excited in me a kind of additional self-love.

“Occupied by these different sensations, and impelled by the various pleasures of my new existence, I instantly arose, and was transported by perceiving that I moved along, as if by some unknown, some hidden power.

“Hardly had I advanced one step, when the novelty of my situation rendered me immoveable. My surprise returned; for I supposed that all the objects around me were in motion, and the whole creation seemed once more to be in disorder.

“I carried my hand to my head, I touched my forehead, I felt my whole frame. Then I found my hand to be the principal organ of my existence. All its informations were so distinct, so perfect, and so superior to what I had experienced from the other senses, that I employed myself for some time in repeating its enjoyments. Every part of my body, which I touched with my hand, seemed to touch my hand in turn, and actually gave back sensation for sensation.

“It was not long before I perceived that this faculty of feeling was expanded over my whole frame, and I began to discover the limits of my existence, which at first I had supposed of an immense extent, and diffused over all the objects I saw.

“Upon casting my eyes upon my body, I conceived it to be of a size so enormous, that all other objects seemed to be, in comparison, as so many luminous particles. I gazed upon my person with pleasure. I examined the formation of my hand, and all its motions; and my hand appeared to be more or less large, in proportion as it was more or less distant from my eyes. On bringing it very near, it concealed, I found, almost every other object from my sight.

“I began to suspect there was some fallacy in the sensation I experienced from the eye, because as I perceived my hand was only a small part, I could not conceive how it should appear so large; I therefore resolved to depend for information upon the touch, which as yet had never deceived me. This precaution was highly serviceable. I renewed my motions, and walked with my face turned toward the heavens. Happening to strike lightly against a palm-tree, I was dismayed, and laid my hand, though not without fear, upon this object, and found it to be a being distinct from myself, because it did not return double sensation as my own body had done. Now it was that, for the first time, I perceived there was something external, something which did not form an actual part of my own existence.

“From this new discovery I concluded that I ought to form my opinion with respect to external objects, in the same manner as I had done with respect to the parts of my body. I resolved, therefore, to feel whatever I saw, and vainly attempted to touch the sun, I stretched forth my arm and found nothing but an airy vacuum. Every effort I made, as each object appeared to me equally near, led me from one fit of surprize into another, nor was it till after an infinite number of trials that I was enabled to use the eye as a guide to the hand, and that I perceived there were some objects more remote from me than others.

“Amazed and mortified at the uncertainty of my state, and the endless delusions to which I seemed subjected, the more I reflected the more I was fatigued and oppressed with thought; I seated myself beneath a tree loaded with delicious fruit, within my reach. On stretching forth my arm, and gently touching it, the fruit instantly separated from the branch; I seized it, and being able to grasp in my hand an entire substance, which formed no part of myself, appeared of great importance. When I held it up its weight, though in itself trivial, seemed like an animated impulse, in conquering which I found another and a greater pleasure.

“I held the fruit near my eye, and I considered its form and its colours. Its fragrance prompted me to carry it near my lips, and with eagerness did I inhale that fragrance. The perfume envited my sense of tasting, which I found to be superior to that of smelling. What savour, what novelty of sensation, did I now experience. Nothing could be more exquisite. What before had been pleasure was how heightened into luxury. The power of tasting gave me the idea of possession. I imagined that the substance of this fruit had become a part of my own, and that I was empowered to transform things without me at will.

“Charmed at the idea of this new power, and incited by the sensations I had already experienced, I continued to pluck the fruit and to eat. At length, however, an agreeable languor stealing upon my senses, my limbs became heavy, and my soul seemed to lose its activity. My sensations, no longer vivid and distinct, presented to me only feeble and irregular images. In the instant, as it were, my eyes became useless, closed, and my head, no longer borne up by the strength of the muscles, sunk back, and found a support upon the verdant turf beneath me.

“To every thing around me I was now lost and insensible. Of my very existence I retained not the smallest sensation. How long I continued thus asleep I know not, for as yet I had not formed the smallest idea of time. My awaking appeared like a second birth, and I only felt that my existence had experienced a certain interruption. This short annihilation produced in me a sensation of fear, and I began to conclude that I was not to exist for ever.

“In this state of doubt and perplexity I also began to suspect that sleep had robbed me of some part of my late powers, when turning around, in order to resolve my doubts, with what astonishment did I behold another form similar to my own? I took it for another self; and I imagined that, far from having lost any thing during my late state of annihilation, my existence was in reality doubled.

“Over this new being I carried my hand, and found, with rapture and astonishment, that it was not a part of myself, but something more; something more charming, something more glorious! nor could I help supposing that my existence was about to be transfused entirely into this, as it were, second part of my being. New ideas and new passions now arose, took possession of my soul, and excited my curiosity. By the touch of my hand I found her to be animated; expression and vivacity darted from her eyes and impressed my soul, and love served to complete that happiness which was begun in the individual, and every sense was gratified in its full variety.”

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE VARIETIES IN THE HUMAN SPECIES.

Every thing which we have hitherto advanced relates to man as an individual. The history of the species requires a separate detail, of which the principal facts can only be derived from the varieties that are found in the inhabitants of different regions. Of the varieties, the first and the most remarkable is the colour, the second is the form and size, and the third is the disposition. Considered in its full extent, each of these objects might afford materials for a volume. Our remarks, however, shall be general, and confined to such points as have been established on undoubted testimony.

In examining the surface of the earth, and beginning our inquiries from the north, we find in Lapland, and in the northern parts of Tartary, a race of small-sized men, whose figure is uncouth, and whose physiognomy is as wild as their manners are unpolished. Though they seem to be of a degenerate species they yet are numerous, and the countries they occupy are extensive.

The Danish, Swedish, and Muscovite Laplanders, the inhabitants of Nova-Zembla, the Borandians, the Samoiedes, the Ostiacks of the old continent, the Greenlanders, and the savages to the north of the Esquimaux Indians, of the new continent, appear to be of one common race, which has been extended and multiplied along the coasts of the northern seas, in deserts and climates, considered as uninhabitable by every other nation. These people have broad faces and flat noses; their eyes are of a yellowish brown, inclining to black, their eye-lids are drawn toward the temples, their cheek-bones are extremely prominent, their mouths are large, the lower part of their countenances is narrow, their lips thick and turned outward; their voices are shrill, with heads bulky, hair black and straight, and skin of a tawny colour. They are small in stature, and though meagre, they are yet of a squat form. In general their size is about four feet, and the tallest exceed not four feet and a half. Among these people, if there is any difference to be found, it depends on the greater or less degree of deformity. The Borandians, for example, are still less than the Laplanders. The white of their eye is of a darker yellow, and they are also more tawny; and their legs, instead of being slender, like those of the latter, are thick and bulky. The Samoiedes are more squat than the Laplanders; their heads are larger, their noses longer, their complexion more dark, their legs shorter, their hair longer, and their beards more scanty. The Greenlanders have the most tawny skin, its colour being that of a deep olive, and it is even said that some of them are as black as those of Ethiopia. Throughout them all it is to be observed, the women are as unseemly as the men; and so nearly do they resemble each other, that at first it is not easy to distinguish them. The women of Greenland are very small, but well proportioned; their hair is more black, and their skin softer, than those of the Samoiede women: their breasts are of such length that children are able to receive the nipple, which is of a jet black, over the mother’s shoulder. Some travellers say they have no hair but upon the head, and that they are not subject to the periodical complaints common to the sex. Their visage is large, their eyes small, black, and lively, and their feet and hands are short. In every other respect the Samoiede and the Greenland women are similar. The savages north of the Esquimaux, and even in the northern parts of Newfoundland, bear a resemblance to the Greenlanders; their eyes, it is true, are larger, but, like them, they are of small stature, have flat noses, and large and broad faces.

Nor is it alone in deformity, in diminutiveness, and in the colour of the hair and eyes, that these nations resemble each other, but also in their inclinations and manners. Incivility, superstition, and ignorance, are alike conspicuous in them all.

The Danish Laplanders have a large black cat, which they make a confidant in all their secrets, a counsellor in all their difficulties, and whom they consult on all occasions. Among the Swedish Laplanders, there is in every family a drum, for the purpose of consulting the devil; and though they are robust and nimble, they are yet so timid and dastardly, that no inducement can bring them into the field of battle. Gustavus Adolphus undertook, but undertook in vain, to form a regiment of Laplanders. Indeed there is reason to suppose that they cannot live but in their own country, and in their own manner. In travelling over the ice and snow, they use skates made of fur, which are in length about two ells, and half a foot broad, and which are raised and pointed before, and fastened to the foot by straps of leather. With these they make such dispatch on the snow, that they easily overtake the swiftest animals. They also use a pole, pointed with iron at one end, and rounded at the other. This pole serves to push them along, to direct their course, to keep them from falling, to stop the impetuosity of their career, and to kill what game they overtake. With their skates they descend the steepest precipices, and scale the most craggy mountains; nor are the women less skilful in such exercises than the men. They are all accustomed to the bow and arrow; and it is asserted, that the Muscovite Laplanders launch a javelin with so much dexterity, that at the distance of thirty paces they are sure to hit a mark no larger than a silver crown, and with such force, that it will transfix a human body. They hunt the ermine, the fox, the lynx, and the martin, whose skins they barter for brandy and tobacco. Their food consists principally of dried fish, and the flesh of the bear and rein-deer. Of the bones of fishes, pounded and mixed with the tender bark of the pine or birch-tree, is their bread composed. Their drink is either train-oil or brandy and when deprived of these, their favourite beverage is water, in which juniper-berries have been infused.

Examined in a moral sense, the Laplanders have few virtues, and all the vices of ignorance. Immersed in superstition and idolatry, of a Supreme Being they have no conception; nor is it easy to determine which is most conspicuous, the grossness of their understandings, or the barbarity of their manners, being equally destitute of courage and shame. Boys and girls, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, bathe together naked, without being in the smallest degree ashamed. When they come out of their baths, which are warm, they immediately go into the rivers. It is the custom among all these people to offer their wives and daughters to strangers, and are much offended if the offer is not accepted.

In winter, the Laplanders, clothe themselves with the skin of the rein-deer, and in summer with the skins of birds. To the uses of linen they are utter strangers. The women of Nova-Zembla have the nose and ears pierced, and ornament them with pendants of blue stone; and to add a lustre to their charms, they form blue streaks upon their forehead and chin. The men wear no hair on the head, and cut their beards round. The Greenland women dress themselves with the skin of the dog-fish: they also paint their faces with blue and yellow, and wear pendants in their ears. They all live underground, or in huts almost so, covered with the bark of trees, or the bones of fishes. Some of them form subterraneous trenches, from one hut to another, by which, during the winter months, they can enjoy the society of their neighbours without going out. A continued series of darkness for several months obliges them to illuminate their dreary abodes with lamps, in which they burn the same train oil they use as drink. In summer they have scarcely more comfort than in winter, being obliged to live perpetually in a thick smoke, which is the only device they have contrived for the destruction of gnats, which are perhaps more numerous in these regions of frost, than in those of the most scorching heat. Under all these hardships they are subject to few diseases, and they live to a prodigious age. So vigorous indeed are the old men, that they are hardly to be distinguished from the young. The only infirmity they experience is that of blindness, which is very common among them. Perpetually dazzled by the strong reflection of the snow in winter, and enveloped in clouds of smoke in summer, few when advanced in years are found to retain the use of their eyes.

As all the different tribes or nations, therefore, resemble each other in form, in shape, in colour, in manners, and even in oddity of customs, they are undoubtedly of the same race of men. The practice of offering their women to strangers, and of being pleased when they are thought worthy of caresses, may proceed from a consciousness of their own deformity as well as that of their women. In appearance, the woman, whom a stranger has accepted, they afterwards respect for her superior beauty. At any rate it is certain, although remote from each other, and separated by a great sea, the custom is general in all the above countries. We even meet with it among the Crim Tartars, the Calmucks, and among several other nations of Siberia and of Tartary, where personal deformity is almost as conspicuous as in those of the North. In all the neighbouring nations, on the other hand, as in China, and in Persia[C], where the women are remarkable for beauty, the men are also remarkable for jealousy.

In examining the different nations adjacent to this extensive territory, which the Laplanders occupy, we find they have no affinity. Alone are they resembled by the Ostiacks and the Tongusians, whose situation is to the south and south-east of the Samoiedes. The Samoiedes and Borandians bear no resemblance to the Russians; nor do the Laplanders to the Fins, the Goths, the Danes, or the Norwegians. The Greenlanders are likewise entirely different from the savages of Canada, who are tall and well proportioned, and though the tribes differ from each other, they do more so from the Laplanders. The Ostiacks, however, seem to be a less ugly and taller branch of the Samoiedes. They live on raw fish or flesh, and for drink they prefer blood to water. Like the Laplanders and the Samoiedes they are immersed in idolatry; nor are they known to have any fixed abode. In fine, they appear to form a shade between the race of Laplanders and the Tartarians; or rather, indeed, may it be said that the Laplanders, the Samoiedes, the Borandians, the Nova-Zemblians, and perhaps the Greenlanders, and the savages to the north of the Esquimaux Indians, are Tartars reduced to the lowest point of degeneracy; that the Ostiacks are less degenerated than the Tongusians, who though to the full as ugly, are yet more sizeable and shapely. The Samoiedes and Laplanders live in the latitude of 68 or 69, the Ostiacks and the Tongusians in that of 60. The Tartars, who are situated along the Wolga, in the latitude of 55, are gross, stupid, and beastly; like the Tongusians, they have hardly any idea of religion, nor will they receive for their wives any women until they have had an intercourse with other men.

The Tartars occupy the greatest part of Asia, and in fact extend from Russia to Kamtschatka, a space in length from 11 to 1200 leagues and from 700 to 750 in breadth; a circumference twenty times larger than the whole kingdom of France. The Tartars terminate China, the kingdoms of Boutan and Alva, and the empires of Mogul and Persia, even to the Caspian Sea, on the north and west. They spread along the Wolga, and over the west coast of the Caspian Sea, even to Daghestan. They have penetrated to the north coast of the Black Sea, and formed settlements in the Crimea, and in the neighbourhood of Moldavia and the Ukraine. All these people have the upper part of their face very large and wrinkled even while yet in their youth. Their noses are short and flat, their eyes little, and sunk in their head; their cheek-bones are high; the lower part of their face is narrow; their chin is long and prominent; their teeth are long and straggling; there eye-brows are so large as to cover the eyes; their eye-lids are thick; the face broad and flat; their complexion tawny, their hair black; they have but little beard, which is disposed like the Chinese; they have thick thighs and short legs, and though but of middling stature, they are remarkably strong and robust. The ugliest of them are the Calmucks, in whose appearance there seems to be something frightful. They are all wanderers and vagabonds; and their only shelter is that of tents, made of hair or skins. Their food is horse-flesh, and flesh of other animals, either raw or a little softened by being between the horse and the saddle. They eat also fish dried in the sun. Their most common drink is mare’s milk, fermented, with millet ground into meal. They all have the head shaved, except a tuft of hair on the top, which they let grow sufficiently long to form into tresses on each side of the face. The women, who are as ugly as the men, wear their hair, which they bind up with bits of copper, and other ornaments of the same nature.

The majority of these tribes are alike strangers to religion, morality, and decency. They are robbers by profession; and those of Daghestan, who live in the neighbourhood of civilized countries, sustain a great traffic of slaves, whom they carry off by forte, and afterwards sell to the Turks and the Persians. Their wealth consists chiefly of horses, which are more numerous, perhaps, in Tartary than in any other part of the world. They live in the same place with their horses, and are continually employed in training, dressing, and exercising them, whom they reduce to such implicit obedience, that they actually appear to understand, as it were, the intention of their riders.

To attain a knowledge of the particular differences which subsist in the race of Tartars, we have only to compare the descriptions that travellers have given of their different tribes. The Calmucks, who are situated in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, between the Muscovites and the great Tartars, are, according to Tavernier, robust, but the most ugly and the most deformed of all human beings. Their faces are so flat and so broad that their eyes, which are uncommonly small, are from five to six inches asunder; and their noses so flat that two holes are barely perceivable instead of nostrils. Next to the Calmucks, the natives of Daghestan rank in the class of deformity. The little Tartars, or the Tartars of Nogai, who dwell near the Black Sea, are less ugly than the Calmucks, though their faces are broad, their eyes small, and in their figures there is a great resemblance. From their intermixture with the Circassians, the Moldavians, and other neighbouring nations, it is probable that this race have lost much of their original ugliness. The Tartars of Siberia have, like the Calmucks, broad faces, short flat noses, and small eyes; and though their language is different, yet they bear so strong a resemblance to each other, that they can only be considered as the same people. The further we advance eastward we find the features of the Tartars are gradually softened, but the characteristics essential to the race still remain. The Mongou Tartars, according to Palafox, who conquered China, and who were the most polished, though they are the least deformed, yet, like all the other tribes, their eyes are small, faces broad and flat, scanty beards, either black or red; their noses compressed and short, and their complexions tawny. The people of Thibet, and the other southern provinces of Tartary, are also of a more agreeable aspect. Mr. Sanchez, formerly first physician to the Russian army, a gentleman distinguished by his abilities, has obligingly communicated to me in writing the remarks he had made in the course of his travels through Tartary.

In the years 1735, 1736, and 1737, he visited the Ukraine, the banks of the Don to the sea of Zabach, and the confines of Cuban to Asoph. He traversed the deserts between the countries of the Crimea and Backmut; he went among the Calmucks, who wander about without any fixed habitation, from the kingdom of Casan to the banks of the Don; as also the Crimea and Nogai-Tartars, who wander between the Crimea and the Ukraine, and likewise the Kergissi and Tcheremissi-Tartars, who are situated to the north of Astracan, between the latitude of 50 and 60. These according to him are more diminutive and squat, less active and more corpulent; their eyes are black, complexions tawny, and their faces larger and broader than those we have mentioned. He adds, that among these Tartars, he saw numbers of men and women who had no resemblance to them, but were as white as the people of Poland. They have many slaves among them, brought from among the Russians and Poles; and as their religion admits a number of wives and concubines; and as their Sultans, and Murzas or nobles, prefer the women of Georgia and Circassia for their wives, the children produced from such alliances are less ugly, and more fair than from connections among themselves. There is even a whole tribe of Tartars, called Kabardinski-Tartars, who are remarkable for their beauty. Of these Mr. Sanchez saw three hundred on horseback, who were going to enter into the service of Russia; and he declares that he never saw men of a more noble and manly figure; their complexions were fair, fresh and ruddy; their eyes were large and black, and they were tall and well proportioned. He was assured by the Lieutenant-general of Serapikin, who had made a long residence at Kabarda, that the women were equally handsome; but this tribe, so different from all the Tartars around them, came originally from the Ukraine, and removed to Kabarda about the beginning of the last century.

Though the Tartar blood is intermixed, on one side with that of the Chinese, and on the other with that of the Oriental Russians, yet there is sufficient characteristics of the race remaining to suppose them of one common stock. Among the Muscovites are numbers, whose form of visage and body bear a strong resemblance to those of the Tartars. The Chinese are totally different in their dispositions, manners, and customs. The Tartars are naturally fierce, warlike, and addicted to the chace, inured to fatigue, fond of independence, and to a degree of brutality uncivilized. Altogether opposite are the manners of the Chinese; they are effeminate, pacific, indolent, superstitious, slavish, and full of ceremony and compliment. In their features, and form, however, there is so striking a resemblance, as to leave a doubt whether they did not spring from the same race.

Some travellers tell us, that the Chinese are large and fat, their limbs well formed, their faces broad and round, their eyes small, eye-brows large, their eye-lids turned upwards, and their noses short and flat; that upon the chin they have very little beard, and upon each lip not more than seven or eight tufts of hair. Those who inhabit the southern provinces are more brown and tawny than those in the northern; that in colour they resemble the natives of Mauritania, or the more swarthy Spaniards; but those in the middle provinces are as fair as the Germans.

According to Dampier and others, the Chinese are not all fat and bulky, but they consider being so as an ornament to the human figure. In speaking of the island of St. John, on the coast of China, the former says, that the inhabitants are tall, erect, and little encumbered with fat; that their countenances are long, and their foreheads high; their eyes little, their nose tolerably large, and raised in the middle; their mouths of a moderate size, their lips rather thin, their complexion ash-colour, and their hair black; that they have naturally little beard, and even that they pluck out, leaving only a few hairs upon the chin and upper lip.

According to Le Gentil, the Chinese have nothing disagreeable in their countenance, especially in the northern provinces. In the southern ones, when necessarily much exposed to the sun, they are swarthy. That in general their eyes are small and of an oval form, their nose short, their bodies thick, and their stature of a middling height; he assures us that the women do every thing in their power to make their eyes appear little and oblong, that for this purpose it is a constant practice with young girls, instructed by their mothers, forcibly to extend their eye-lids. This, with the addition of a flat nose, ears long, large, open, and pendent, is accounted complete beauty. He adds, their complexion is delicate, their lips of a fine vermilion, their mouths well proportioned, their hair very black, but that chewing beetle blackens their teeth, and by the use of paint they so greatly injure their skin, that before the age of thirty they have all the appearance of old age.

Palafox assures us that the Chinese are more fair than the oriental Tartars; that they have also less beards, but that in every other respect their visages are nearly the same. It is very uncommon, he says, to see blue eyes either in China or in the Philippine islands; and when seen, it is in Europeans, or in those of European parents.

Inigo de Biervillas asserts, that the women of China are better made than the men. Of the latter, he says, their visages are large and complexions rather yellow; their noses broad, and generally compressed, and their bodies are of a thickness greatly resembling that of a Hollander. The women, on the contrary, though they are generally rather fat than otherwise, are however of a free and easy shape; their complexion and skin are admirable; and their eyes are incomparably fine; but from the great pains taken to compress it in their infancy, there are few to be seen of whose nose the shape is even tolerable.

All the Dutch travellers allow that the Chinese have in general broad faces, small eyes, flat noses, and hardly any beard; that the natives of Canton, and the whole of the southern coast, are as tawny as the inhabitants of Fez, in Africa, but that those of the interior provinces are mostly fair. Now if we compare the descriptions we have already given, from the above authors, of the Chinese and Tartars, hardly will a doubt remain that, although they differ a little in stature and countenance, they originate from one stock, and that the points in which they differ proceed entirely either from the climate, or the mixture of races. Chardin says, “the size of the little Tartars is commonly smaller than the Europeans by four inches, and they are thicker in the same proportion. Their complexion is of the colour of copper; their faces are flat, large, and square; their noses compressed, and their eyes are little. Now these are exactly the features of the inhabitants of China; for I have found, after the most minute investigation, that there is the same conformation of face and body throughout the nations to the east and north of the Caspian Sea, and to the east of the peninsula of Malacca. From this circumstance I was inclined to believe that, however different they may appear either in their complexion or manners, they proceed from one stock, for difference of colour depends entirely upon the quality of the climate and the food; and difference in manners is determined by the nature of the soil, and by the greater or less degree of opulence.”

Father Parennin, who lived long in China, and whose observations are so accurate and so minute, tells us, that the western neighbours of the Chinese, from Thibet northward to Chamo, differ from the Chinese in manners, language, physiognomy, and external conformation; that they are a people rude, ignorant, and slothful, charges that cannot be laid to the Chinese; and that when any of these Tartars go to Pekin, and the Chinese are asked the reason of this difference, they answer, that it proceeds from the water and the soil; in other words, that it is the nature of the country which produces this change upon the bodies and dispositions of the inhabitants. He adds, that this remark seems to be more applicable with respect to China than to any other country he ever saw; that following the emperor northward into Tartary, to the latitude of 48, he found Chinese from Nanquin who had settled there, whose children had become actual Mongous, being bow-legged, with their heads sunk into their shoulders, and a countenance which created disgust.

So strongly do the Japanese resemble the Chinese, that we can hardly scruple to rank them in the same class. Living in a more southern climate they are more yellow or more brown. In general their stature is short, their face, as well as nose, broad and flat, their eyes small, their hair black, and their beard little more than perceptible. They are haughty, fond of war, full of dexterity and vigour, civil and obliging, smooth-tongued, and courteous, but fickle and vain. With astonishing patience they sustain hunger, thirst, cold, heat, fatigue, and all the other hardships of life. Their ceremonies, or rather grimaces, in eating, are numerous and uncouth. They are laborious skilful artificers, and, in a word, their dispositions, manners, and customs are the same as the Chinese.

One singular custom which they have in common, is, so to contract the feet of the women, that they are hardly able to support themselves. Some travellers mention, that in China, when a girl has passed her third year, they bend the foot in such a manner that the toes are made to come under the sole; that they apply to it a strong water, which burns away the flesh; and then they wrap them up in a number of bandages. They add, that the women feel the pain of this operation all their lives; that they walk with great difficulty; and that their gait is to the last degree ungraceful. Other travellers say that they only compress the foot with so much violence as to prevent its growth; but they unanimously allow, that every woman of condition, and even every handsome woman must have a foot small enough to enter with ease the slipper of a child of six years old.

The Japanese, and the Chinese, we may therefore conclude, proceed from the same stock, that for their civilization we must recur to a very distant part of antiquity, and that they differ more from the Tartars in their manners than their figure. To this civilization, the excellence of the soil, the mildness of the climate, and their vicinity to the sea, have perhaps greatly contributed; while the Tartars, from their inland situation, and being separated from other nations by high mountains, have remained wanderers over their vast deserts, which are situated under a climate to the last degree inclement, especially towards the north. The country of Jesso, which is to the north of Japan, and of which, from its situation, the climate might be expected to be temperate, is however cold, barren, and mountainous, and its inhabitants are altogether different from those of China and Japan. They are ignorant and brutal, without manners, and without arts. Their bodies are short and thick; their hair long, their eyes black, their foreheads flat; and their complexions, though yellow, are rather less so than that of the Japanese. Over their bodies, and even the face, they have much hair; they live like savages, and their food consists of the oily parts of whales and other fishes. They are to the last degree indolent and slovenly; their children go almost naked; nor have their women devised any external ornament beyond that of painting their eye-brows and lips of a blue colour. The sole occupation and pleasure of the men are hunting and fishing; and though they have some customs similar to the Japanese, as that of quavering when they sing, yet in general they bear a much more striking resemblance to the northern Tartars, or to the Samoiedes, than to the Japanese.

In examining nations adjacent to China, on the south and west, we find that the Cochin-Chinese, who inhabit a mountainous region to the southward of China, are more tawny and more ugly than the Chinese; and that the Tonquinese, whose country is more fertile, and whose climate is more mild, are in every respect proportionally more handsome.

According to Dampier, the Tonquinese are of a middling height; and though their complexion is tawny, their skin is so delicate and smooth, that the smallest change is perceptible in their countenance, when they happen either to grow pale, or to redden; a circumstance in which they differ from all other Indians. In common their visage is flat and oval; their nose and lips are thick; and they use every art, in order to render their teeth as black as possible.

These nations, therefore, differ but little from the Chinese. They resemble the natives of the southern provinces in colour; if they are more tawny, it is because they live in a warmer climate; and though their faces are less flat, and their noses less contracted, we yet cannot help considering them as a people of the same origin.

Thus it is also with the natives of Siam, of Pegu, of Aracan, of Laos, &c. Of all these the features have a considerable resemblance to those of the Chinese; and though they differ from them in colour, yet their affinity to the Chinese is greater than to the other Indians. The size of the Siamese, says LoubÈre, is rather small, their bodies are well proportioned, their faces are large, and their cheek-bones prominent, their forehead is suddenly contracted, and terminates in a point like the chin; their eyes are small and oblique; the white of the eye is somewhat yellow; their cheeks are hollow, from the elevation of the cheek-bones; their mouths are large, their lips thick, their teeth black, their complexion is coarse, and of a brown colour mixed with red, or, according to some travellers, of an ash colour, to which the continual sultriness of the air contributes as much as the birth; their nose is short and rounded at the point; their ears are large, and the bigger they are the more they are held in estimation.

This taste for long ears is highly prevalent in the east; in different places different arts are used to render them so, and in some they draw them down almost to the shoulders. As for the Siamese, however, their ears are naturally larger than ours; their hair is thick, black, and straight; and both sexes wear it so short, that it does not descend lower than the ear. They anoint their lips with a kind of perfumed pomatum, which makes them appear very pale; they have little beard, and that they pluck out by the roots; nor is it customary with them to pare their nails.

Struys says, that the Siamese women wear pendants in their ears of such mass and weight, that the holes become so large the thumb may be put through them. He adds, that the complexion of both sexes is tawny; that though not tall, they are shapely; and that the Siamese are in general a mild and a civilized people.

According to Father Tachard, the Siamese are exceedingly alert, and have among them tumblers, &c. not less expert and skilful than those in Europe. He says, that the custom they have of blackening the teeth, proceeds from an idea that it is not becoming in man to have teeth white like the brute creation; that it is for this reason they begrime them with black varnish, and then abstain from meat for several days, that it may thoroughly adhere.

The inhabitants of the kingdom of Pegu and Aracan are more black, yet bear a strong resemblance both to the Siamese and the Chinese. Those of Aracan put great value upon a forehead large and flat, and to render them so, they apply a plate of lead to the forehead of their children the minute they are born. Their nostrils are large, their eyes are small and lively, and their ears are of such length as to hang over their shoulders. They feed without disgust on mice, rats, serpents, and fish, however corrupted. Their women are tolerably fair, and their ears are as long as those of the men. The people of Achen, who are situated further north than those of Aracan, have also flat visages, and an olive-coloured skin; they allow their boys to go quite naked, and their girls have only a slight plate of silver to conceal what Nature dictates.

None of these nations differ much from the Chinese, and all resemble the Tartars in the smallness of their eyes, the largeness of their visage, and the olive colour of their skin. In proceeding southward the features begin to change more sensibly. The inhabitants of Malacca, and of the island of Sumatra, are black, diminutive, lively, and well proportioned. Though naked from the middle upward, a little kind of scarf excepted, which they wear sometimes over the right and sometimes over the left shoulder, their aspect is fierce. They are naturally brave, and even formidable when they have swallowed a certain quantity of opium, which intoxicates them with a kind of fury.

According to Dampier, the inhabitants of Sumatra and Malacca are of the same race; they speak nearly the same language, and they have the same bold and haughty disposition. They are of a middling stature, their visage long, their eyes black, their noses of a moderate size, their lips thin, and their teeth are blackened.

In the island of Pugniatan, or Pissagan, within 16 leagues of Sumatra, the natives are tall, and of a yellow complexion, like the Brazilians; their hair is long, and they go completely naked. Those of the Nicobar islands, which lie northward of Sumatra, are of a tawny or yellowish colour, and they also go naked. In speaking of these last islanders, Dampier says, that they are tall and well proportioned; that their visage is long, their hair black and straight, and their noses of a moderate size; that the women have no eye-brows, which it is probable they do not suffer to grow. In Sombreo, an island north of the Nicobar islands, the inhabitants are very black, and they paint their faces with green, yellow, and other colours.

These natives of Malacca, of Sumatra, and of the little adjacent islands, though different from each other, are much more so from the Chinese and the Tartars, and seem to have sprung from another race. The inhabitants of Java, nevertheless, have not the smallest resemblance to those of Sumatra and Malacca, while to the Chinese (the colour alone excepted, which, like the Malaccas, is red mixed with black) they seem to be intimately related. Pigafetta describes them as a people not unlike the Brazilians. Their complexion, says he, is coarse, and their bodies are square and muscular, though in size they are neither very tall nor very short; their visage is flat, their cheeks flabby, their eyes small, their eye-brows inclined to the temples, and their beards thin and short. Father Tachard says, that the people of Java are well made and robust; that they are lively and resolute; and that the extreme heat of the climate obliges them to go almost naked. From other descriptions it appears, that the inhabitants of Java are neither black nor white, but of a purplish red, and that they are mild, familiar and courteous.

Legat informs us, that the women of Java, who are not exposed to the rays of the sun, are less tawny than the men, that their countenance is comely, their breasts prominent and shapely, their complexions beautiful, though brown; their hands delicate, their hair soft, their eyes brilliant, their smile agreeable, and that numbers of them dance with elegance and spirit.

Of the Dutch travellers, the generality allow, that the natives of this island are robust, well proportioned, nervous, and full of muscular vigour; that their visage is flat, their cheek-bones broad and prominent, their eye-lids large, their eyes small, their hair long, and their complexion tawny; that they have little beard; that they wear their hair and their nails very long; and that in order to beautify their teeth, they polish them with files. In a little island fronting that of Java, the women are tawny, their eyes small, their mouths large, their noses flat, and their hair long and black.

From all these accounts we may infer, that the inhabitants of Java greatly resemble the Tartars and Chinese; while those of Malacca, Sumatra, and of the neighbouring little islands differ from them equally in the features of the face, and in the form of the body. This may have very naturally happened; for the peninsula of Malacca, the islands of Sumatra and Java, as well as all the other islands of the Indian Archipelago, must have been peopled by the nations of the neighbouring continents, and even by the Europeans, who have had settlements there for these three hundred years. This must have occasioned a very great variety in the inhabitants both in the features and colour, and in the form of the body and proportion of the limbs. In the island of Java, for example, there is a people called the Chacrelas, who are altogether different, not only from the natives of the island, but even from all the other Indians. The Chacrelas are white and fair, and their eyes are so weak that, incapable of supporting the light of the sun, they go about with them lowered and almost closed till night, when their vision becomes more strong.

According to Pyrard, all the inhabitants of the Malacca islands are similar to those of Sumatra and Java in manners, mode of living, habits, language, and colour. According to Maldeslo, the men are rather black than tawny, and the women are more fair. They have all, he says, black hair, large eyes, eye-brows and eye-lids, and bodies vigorous and robust. They are also nimble and active; and though their hair very soon becomes grey, they yet live to a great age. Each island, he further remarks, has its particular language; nor can it be doubted but that they have been peopled by different nations. The inhabitants of Borneo and of Baly, he adds, are rather black than tawny; but according to other travellers, they are only brown like the other Indians. Carreri says, that the inhabitants of Ternate are of the same colour as those of Malacca, which is a little darker than those of Philippine islands; that their countenances are comely; that the men are more shapely than the women, and that both bestow particular care upon their hair.

The Dutch travellers tell us, that the natives of the Island of Banda are remarkable for longevity; that they have seen one man at the age of 130, and numbers on the verge of that period; that in general they are indolent and inactive; and that while the men amuse themselves in sauntering abroad, the women are subjected to all the offices of labour at home. Dampier observes, that the original natives of the island of Timor, which is one of those most adjacent to New Holland, are a middling size, and of an erect form; that their limbs are slender, their visages long, their hair black and bristly, and their skin exceedingly black; that they are alert and dexterous, but superlatively indolent and slothful. He adds, however, that the inhabitants of the Bay of Laphno are, for the most part, tawny or copper-coloured.

In turning northward we find Manilla, and the other Philippine islands, of which the inhabitants are perhaps more intermixed than those of any other region in the universe, by the alliances they have formed with the Spaniards, the Indians, the Chinese, the Malabars, the blacks, &c. The negroes, who live in the rocks and woods of Manilla, differ entirely from the other inhabitants; of some the hair is short and frizly, like the negroes of Angola, and of others it is long. Their colour consists of various shades of black. According to Gemelli Carreri, there are some among them who, like the islanders mentioned by Ptolemy, have tails of the length of four or five inches. This traveller adds, that he has been assured, by Jesuits of undoubted testimony, that in the island of Mindoro, which is not far from Manilla, there is a race of men called Manghians, who have all tails of that length, and that some of these men had even embraced the Catholic faith; that they are of an olive colour, and have long hair.

Dampier says, that the inhabitants of the island of Mindanao, which is one of the principal and most southerly of the Philippines, are of a middling height, that their limbs are small, their bodies erect, their heads small, their visages oval, their foreheads flat, their eyes black and small, their noses short, their mouths moderate, their lips thin and red, their teeth black, their hair black and smooth, and their skin tawny, but of a brighter yellow than many of the other Indians; that in point of complexion the women have the advantage of the men; that they are also more shapely, and have features tolerably regular; that the men are in general ingenious and alert, but slothful, and addicted to thievery.

Northward of Manilla is the island of Formosa, situated at no great distance from the coast of Fokien, in China, but the natives bear no resemblance to the Chinese. According to Struys, the Formosans are of small stature, particularly those who inhabit the mountains, and that they have broad faces. The women have large coarse breasts, and a beard like the men; their ears, naturally long, they render still more so by thick shells, which they wear as pendants; their hair is black and long, and their complexions are of different degrees of yellow. Though averse to labour, they are yet admirably skilled in the use of the javelin and bow; they are excellent swimmers, and run with incredible swiftness. Struys declares, that in this island he actually saw a man with a tail above a foot long, covered with reddish hair, not unlike that of an ox, and that this man assured him, if it was a blemish to have a tail, it proceeded from the climate, for all the natives of the southern part of the island had tails like himself.

I know not what credit we ought to give to this relation of Struys, for if the fact be true, it must at least be exaggerated; it differs from what other travellers have said with respect to these men with tails, and even from the account of Ptolemy, and from that of Mark Paul, the latter of whom, in his geographical description, says, that in the kingdom of Lambry there are mountaineers who have tails of the length of the hand. Struys seems to rest upon the authority of Mark Paul, as Gemelli Carreri does upon that of Ptolemy, though the tail he mentions to have seen is widely different in its dimensions from those of the blacks of Manilla, the inhabitants of Lambry, and other places, as described by other writers.

The editor of the description of the island of Formosa, from the memoirs of Psalmanazar, makes no mention of a people so very extraordinary; but says, that though the climate is exceedingly hot, the women, those especially who are not exposed to the rays of the sun, are exceedingly fair and beautiful; that with certain lotions they take particular care to preserve their complexion; that they are equally attentive to the beauty of their teeth, and instead of rendering them black, like the Japanese and Chinese, they use every effort to keep them white; that the men are not tall, but thick and strong; that they are commonly vigorous, indefatigable, skilful in war, and dexterous in manual exercises.

In their accounts of the natives of Formosa, the Dutch travellers differ from all those we have yet mentioned. Mandelslo, as well as the writers of the collection of voyages, which paved the way for the establishment of the Dutch East-India Company, informs us that these islanders are taller than the Europeans; that the colour of their skin is of a dark brown; that their bodies are hairy; and that the women are low in stature, but robust, fat, and tolerably well proportioned.

In few writers respecting this island do we find any mention of men with tails; and of the form and features of the natives, authors differ also prodigiously. With respect to one fact they seem, however, to agree, though it is not perhaps less extraordinary, namely, that the women are not allowed to bear children before the age of 35, though allowed to marry long before that period. In speaking of this custom, Rechteren thus expresses himself: “After the women are married, they must not become mothers till they have completed their 35th or 37th year. When they happen to be pregnant before that time, their priestesses trample upon their bellies with their feet, and thus occasion a miscarriage, as painful and dangerous, if not more so than the natural labour. To bring a child into the world previous to the age prescribed, would be not only a disgrace but an enormous crime. I have seen women who had suffered 16 of these forced miscarriages, and were only allowed to bring into the world their 17th child.”

The Mariana-islands, or the Ladrones, which are the most remote from the eastern coast, are inhabited by a people rude and uncivilized. Father Gobien says that, till the arrival of the Europeans, they had never seen fire; and that nothing could exceed their astonishment when, on the arrival of Magellan, they first beheld it. Their complexion is tawny, though less brown than that of the natives of the Philippines; in strength and robustness they surpass the Europeans. They are tall and well proportioned; and though they feed solely on roots, fruits, and fish, they are very corpulent, which however, does not check their nimbleness and activity. They live to a great age; nor is it uncommon to find among them persons who, strangers to sickness, have already reached their 100th year.

Carreri says, that the natives of these islands are of a gigantic figure, corpulent, and so strong that they can raise a weight of 500 pounds upon their shoulders. In general their hair is frizly, their noses thick, their eyes are large, and their colour like that of the Indians. The natives of Guan, one of these islands, have long black hair, large noses, thick lips, white teeth, long visages, and fierce aspects. They are also exceedingly robust; and it is said they do not in height measure less than seven feet.

Southward of the Mariana-islands, and eastward of the Malaccas, we find the country of the Papous, and New Guinea, which seem to be the most southern regions. Argensola tells us, that the Papous are as black as the Caffres, that their hair is frizly, and their countenance meagre and disagreeable. In this country, nevertheless, there are people as fair as the Germans; but their eyes are exceedingly weak and delicate. According to Le Maire, they are not only very black, but also savage and brutal; they wear rings in their ears and nostrils, and sometimes also in the partition of the nose; they likewise wear bracelets of mother-of-pearl above the elbows and on the wrists, and cover their heads with a cap made of the bark of a tree painted with several colours. They are well proportioned, have a sufficiency of beard; their teeth are black, as is also the hair, which, though frizly, is not so woolly as that of the negroes. They run very fast, and their weapons consist of clubs, spears, and sabres, made of hard wood, the use of iron being unknown to them. They also employ their teeth as weapons, and bite like dogs; beetle and pimento mixed with chalk make part of their food. The women are of hideous aspect; their breasts hang down to the navel; their bellies are extremely prominent; their arms and limbs are small; and in their visages they resemble so many apes.

Dampier says, that the natives of the island of Sabala, in New Guinea, are a class of tawny Indians, with long black hair, and whose manners are not much different from those of Mindanao, and the other oriental islands; but besides them, it is also peopled by negroes, with short woolly hair. Speaking of another island, which he calls Garret-Denys, he says, that the natives are black, vigorous, and well shaped; that their heads are large and round; that their hair, which they cut in different fashions, and tinge with different colours, as red, white, and yellow, is short and frizly; that their faces are large and round, and their noses thick and flat; that nevertheless their physiognomy would not be absolutely disagreeable, did they not thrust a kind of peg, about one inch thick and four inches long, across the nostrils, so that both ends may touch the cheek-bones; and that they pierce their ears with similar pegs.

According to the same author, the natives of the coast of New Holland, which is in the latitude of 16, and to the south of the island of Timor, are of all mankind perhaps the most miserable, and the most upon a level with the brutes. They are tall, erect, and thin; their limbs are long and slender; their heads are large; their foreheads round, and their eye-brows thick. Their eye-lids are always half shut; a habit they contract in their infancy to save their eyes from the gnats, and as they never open their eyes, they cannot see at a distance without raising their head, as if looking at something over their heads. Their noses and lips are thick, and their mouths large. They pull out, it would seem, the two front teeth of the upper jaw; for in neither sex, nor at any age, are they ever found to possess these teeth. They have no beard; their visage is long, nor does it contain one pleasing feature. Their hair is short, black, and frizly, like that of the negroes; and their skin is as black as those of Guinea. Their whole cloathing consists of a bit of the bark of a tree fastened round the middle. They have no houses, and they sleep on the bare ground, without any covering. They associate, men, women, and children, promiscuously, in troops, to the number of 20 or 30. Their only food is a small fish, which they catch by forming reservoirs in little arms of the sea, and to every kind of grain or bread they are utter strangers.

The natives of another part of New Holland, in the 22d or 23d degree of south latitude, seem to be of the same race as those We have now described; they are ugly to an extreme; their eyes have the same defect as those of the others; their skin is black, their hair frizly, and their bodies tall and slender.

From these descriptions it appears, that the islands and coasts of the Indian ocean are peopled by men widely different from each other. The natives of Malacca, of Sumatra, and of the Nicobar islands, appear to derive their origin from those of the peninsula of Indus, and those of Java from the Chinese, the white men excepted, who go by the name of Chacrelas, and who must have sprung from the Europeans. The natives of the Malacca islands seem also in general to have originated from the Indians in the peninsula; but those of the island of Timor, which is near to New Holland, are almost similar to the people of that country. Those of Formosa, and the Mariana islands, resemble each other in size, vigour, and features, and seem to form a race distinct from that of every other people around them. The Papus, and other nations in the neighbourhood of New Guinea, are real blacks, and resemble those of Africa, though at a prodigious distance from that continent, and separated from it by a space of 2,200 leagues of sea. The natives of New Holland resemble the Hottentots. But before we draw any conclusions from all these relations and differences, it is necessary to pursue our enquiries with respect to the different nations of Asia and Africa.

The Moguls, and other nations of the peninsula of India, are not unlike the Europeans in shape and in features; but they differ more or less from them in colour. The Moguls are olive, though in the Indian language the word Mogul signifies White. The women are extremely delicate, and they bathe themselves very often: they are of an olive colour as well as the men; and, what is opposite to the women in Europe, their legs and thighs are long, and their bodies are short. Tavernier says, that after passing Lahor, and the kingdom of Cashmire, the women have naturally no hair on any part of the body, and the men have hardly any beard. According to Thevenot, the Mogul women are very fruitful, though exceedingly chaste, and suffer so little from the pains of child-birth, that they are often abroad the day following. He adds, that in the kingdom of Decan they are allowed to marry, the male by his tenth, and the female by her eighth year; and at that age they not unoften have children; but the women who become mothers so soon usually cease bearing before they arrive at 30, and by that period they appear wrinkled, and marked with all the deformities of age. It is not an uncommon practice among them to have their skins pricked in the shape of flowers, and by painting them with the juices of plants, they perfectly resemble them.

The natives of Bengal are more yellow than the Moguls. In disposition also they differ totally; their women, instead of being chaste, of all the Indian women are the most lascivious. In this country they carry on a great traffic of slaves, male and female. They also make numbers of eunuchs. They are comely and well-shaped, are fond of commerce, and have much mildness in their manners.

The natives of the coast of Coromandel are more black than the people of Bengal; they are also less civilized, and in general go nearly naked. Those of the coast of Malabar are still more black; their hair is black also, straight, and long, and are of the same size with the Europeans. Even in their towns men, women, and children, bathe promiscuously in public basons. Their women wear rings in their noses; they are married at the age of eight, and though black, or at least of a very deep brown, they yet are comely and well proportioned.

The customs of the different Indian nations are all very singular, if not whimsical. The Banians eat nothing which has had life in it; they are even afraid to kill the smallest reptile, however offensive to them; they throw rice and beans into their rivers as food for the fishes, and grains of different kinds upon the earth for the birds and insects. When they meet a hunter, or a fisher, they earnestly beg of him to desist; if deaf to their entreaties, they offer him money for his gun, or his nets, and when no persuasion nor offer will avail, they trouble the water to frighten away the fishes, and cry with all their strength to put the birds and other game to flight.

The Naires of Calicut form a class of nobles, whose sole profession is that of arms. These men are handsome, and of a comely aspect, though of an olive colour, and though they lengthen their ears to such a pitch as to make them fall over their shoulders, and sometimes lower, they are tall, hardy, courageous, and highly expert in military exercise. These Naires are allowed no more than one wife, but the women may have as many husbands as they please. Father Tachard says, that they sometimes have not fewer than ten, whom they consider as so many slaves, subjected by their beauty. This privilege is annexed to nobility, from which the women of condition derive to themselves every possible advantage. Those of inferior rank are allowed but one husband, but they comfort themselves under this restraint by the caresses of strangers, with whom they carry on their illicit amours, in defiance of their husbands, who dare not even speak to them upon the subject. The mothers prostitute their daughters in their early infancy. The nobles, or Naires, seem to be of a race different from the lower order, for the latter, men as well as women, are more ugly, yellow, unshapely, and more diminutive. Among the Naires there are some whose legs are as thick as the body of another man. This deformity they have from their birth, and not from any particular malady; and nevertheless they are exceedingly active. This race of men with thick legs have not increased much either among the Naires or any other classes of Indians; they are, however, in other places, and especially in Ceylon, where they are said to be the race of St. Thomas.

The natives of Ceylon are not unlike those of the coast of Malabar. They are less black, but their ears are as large, and descend as low. They are of a mild aspect, and naturally nimble, alert, and lively. Their hair which is very black, the men wear short; the common people go almost naked; and the women, according to a custom pretty general in India, have their bosoms uncovered. In Ceylon there is a species of savages, who are called Bedas; they occupy a small district on the north part of the island, and seem to be of a peculiar race. The spot they inhabit is entirely covered with wood, amidst which they conceal themselves so closely that it is with great difficulty they are discovered. Their complexion is fair, and sometimes red, like that of the Europeans. Their language has not the smallest affinity to that of any of the other Indians. They have no villages nor houses, nor hold any intercourse with the rest of mankind. Their weapons are bows and arrows, with which they kill a great number of boars, stags, and other animals; they never dress their meat, but sweeten it with honey, which they possess in great abundance. We are strangers to the origin of this tribe, which is far from being numerous, and of which every family lives separate. It appears that the Bedas of Ceylon, as well as the Chacrelas of Java, who are both fair and few in number, are of European extraction. It is possible that some European men and women might have formerly been deserted in these islands, or thrown upon then by shipwreck, and that for fear of being maltreated by the natives, they and their descendants have remained in the woods, and in the mountainous parts of the country, where, habituated to a savage life, they might at length consider it as preferable.

It is supposed that the natives of the Maldivia islands are descended from those of Ceylon, yet they bear no resemblance, the latter being black and badly formed; the former shapely, and, their olive colour excepted, little different from the Europeans. Besides they are a people composed of all nations. Those of the northern parts are more civilized than those of the southern. The women, notwithstanding their olive colour are handsome; and some of them are as fair as those of Europe. Their hair is universally black: this they consider as a beauty; and they studiously render it of that colour, by keeping the heads of their boys and girls constantly shaved every eight days till the age of eight or nine years. Another beauty is to have the hair very long, and very thick; and for this purpose they anoint their head and body with a perfumed oil. These islanders love exercise, and are industrious artists; they are superstitious and greatly addicted to women; and though the women are particularly cautious of exposing their bosoms, they are yet exceeding debauched, and lavish of their favours.

The natives of Cambaia are of an ash-colour; and those bordering on the sea the most swarthy. In their accounts of Guzarat, the Dutch tell us, that the natives are all of yellow shades; that they are of the same size as the Europeans; that the women who are rarely exposed to the sun, are fairer than the men; and that some of them are little more swarthy than the Portuguese. Mandelslo says, that the people of Guzarat are all of a colour more or less tawny or olive, according to the climate in which they are situated; that the men are strong and shapely, have large faces and black eyes; that the women are small but well proportioned, that they wear their hair long, also pegs in their nostrils, and large pendants in their ears. Few of them are deformed; some have a more clear complexion than others, yet they have all black straight hair. The ancient inhabitants of Guzarat are easily distinguished from the others by their colour, which is much more black, and by their being more stupid and barbarous.

Goa is the chief Portuguese settlement in the Indies, and though it may have lost much of its former splendor, it is still, however, a rich and a commercial city. Here, at one time, more slaves were sold than in any other part of the world; and where the most beautiful women and girls, from all parts of Asia, became the property of the highest bidder. These slaves were of all colours, and were skilled in music, as well as in the arts of sewing and embroidery. The Indians were chiefly captivated with the Caffre girls from Mosambique, who are all black. “It is remarkable, says Pyrard, that the sweat of the Indian men or women has no disagreeable smell; whereas of the negroes of Africa, the stench, when they are in any degree over-heated, is insupportable. He adds, that the Indian women are fond of the European men, and that they prefer them to the white men of the Indies.”

The Persians are neighbours to the Moguls, and bear a considerable likeness to them; those especially who occupy the southern parts of Persia. The natives of Ormus, and of the provinces of Bascia and Balascia, are very brown and tawny; those of Chesmur, and the other provinces, in which the heat is less intense than in Ormus, are more fair; and those of the northern provinces are tolerably white. The women who inhabit the islands of the Persian gulph, are, according to the Dutch travellers, brown or yellow, and not in the least agreeable. They have several modes and customs similar to those of the Indian women, as having a hole formed through the cartilage of the nose, for the admission of a ring, and through the skin of the nose, immediately below the eyes, for that of a gold wire. Indeed this custom of piercing the nose, in order to embellish it with rings and other trinkets, has extended much farther than the gulph of Persia. Many of the women in Arabia have an incision made through their nostrils for the same purpose; and with this people it is an act of gallantry for the husband to salute his wife through those rings, which are sometimes so large as to encompass the whole mouth.

Xenophon, in speaking of the Persians, says, that they were generally fat and gross; Marcellinus, on the contrary, says, that in his time they were meagre and thin. Olearius adds, that they are to this day what the last mentioned author describes, that they are full of strength and vigour, and that their complexion is olive-coloured, their hair black, and their noses aquiline.

That the Persian blood is naturally gross, says Chardin, is evident from the Guebres, who are a remnant of the ancient Persians, and who are ugly, ill shaped, and coarse skinned. It is evident also from the inhabitants of the provinces nearest to India, who, as they never form any alliances but among each other, are little less deformed than the Guebres. Throughout the rest of the kingdom the Persian blood has become highly refined, by intermixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, two nations the most remarkable for the beauty of the inhabitants of any in the world. Thus in Persia there is hardly a man of distinction whose mother came not from Georgia or Circassia; and even the king himself is commonly, by the mother’s side, sprung from a native of one or other of these countries. As it is many years since this mixture first took place, the Persian women, though still inferior in beauty to the Georgian, have become very handsome. The men are commonly tall, erect, fresh-coloured, and vigorous; their air is graceful, and their appearance engaging. The mildness of their climate, and the sobriety in which they are brought up, contribute much to their personal beauty. This they in no degree inherit from their fathers, for without the above mixture the men of rank in Persia would be extremely ugly and deformed, being descendants of the Tartars. The Persians, on the contrary, are polished and ingenious; their imagination is lively, quick, and fertile; though fond of arts and sciences, they are yet ambitious of warlike honours; they are proud and very fond of praise; have much familiarity in their tempers; they are amorous and voluptuous, luxuriant, and prodigal, and are alike unacquainted with economy and commerce.

Though in general tolerably sober, they are immoderate devourers of fruit; and nothing is more common than to see one man eat twelve pounds of melons. Some will eat three or four times that quantity, and by over-indulging their appetite for fruit, numbers lose their lives.

Fine women of every colour are common in Persia, as they are brought thither by merchants, selected on account of their beauty. The white women come from Poland, from Muscovy, from Circassia, from Georgia, and from the frontiers of Great Tartary, the tawny ones from the territories of the Great Mogul, the kingdom of Golconda and Visapore; and the black ones from the coast of the Red Sea.

Among the inferior classes of women a strange superstition prevails. Such as are barren imagine that they have only to pass under the suspended body of a gibbeted criminal to become fruitful; the influence of a male corpse, and that even from a distance, will communicate to them fecundity. When this expedient fails, they go into the canals which flow from the public baths, when they know a number of men are bathing. Should the latter supposed specific prove alike ineffectual as the former, their last resource is to swallow that part of the prepuce which is cut off in the operation of circumcision; and this they deem a sovereign remedy against sterility.

The inhabitants of Persia, of Turkey, of Arabia, of Egypt, and of all Barbary, may be considered as one and the same people, who, in the time of Mahomet and his successors, invaded immense territories, extended their dominions, and became exceedingly intermixed with the original natives of all those countries. The Persians, the Turks, and the Moors, are to a certain degree civilized; but the Arabs, have for the most part remained in a state of lawless independence. They live like the Tartars, without law, without government, and almost without society: theft, robbery, and violence, are authorized by their chiefs; they glory in their vices, and pay no respect to virtue; and all human institutions they despise, excepting such as are founded upon fanaticism and superstition.

They are inured to labour, and to which they habituate their horses, allowing them refreshment but once in twenty-four hours. Their horses are necessarily meagre, but are excellent coursers, and seem indefatigable.

In general the Arabs live miserably: they have neither bread nor wine, nor do they take the trouble to cultivate the earth. Instead of bread, they use wild grain, mixed and kneaded with the milk of their camels, sheep, and goats. These they conduct in flocks from place to place, till they find a spot of sufficient herbage for them. On this spot they erect their tents, and live with their wives and children till the herbage is consumed, when they decamp and proceed in search of more.

However hard may be their mode of living, and simple their food, yet the Arabs are robust and stout; they are of a tolerable size and rather handsome. As the generality of them go naked, or with the slight covering of a wretched shirt, their skins are much scorched by the heat of the sun. Those of the coasts of Arabia-Felix, and of the island of Scotora, are more diminutive; their complexion is either ash-coloured or tawny; and in form they resemble the Abyssinians.

The Arabs paint their arms, lips, and different parts of their body, of a deep blue, which they penetrate into the flesh by means of a kind of needle contrived on purpose, and it can never be effaced. This custom is also common among the negroes who traffic with the Mahometans. Some of the young girls among the Arabs paint various devices on their bodies, of a blue colour, which is done by vitriol on the point of a lancet, and this they consider as an embellishment to their beauty.

La Boulaye says, that the Arabian women of the Desert paint their hands, lips, and chin, of a blue colour; that in their noses they mostly have gold or silver rings, of three inches in diameter; that though born fair, they yet lose all their complexion by being constantly exposed to the sun; that the young girls are very agreeable, and immoderately fond of singing; that their songs are not melancholy and plaintive like those of the Turks and Persians, but more strange, they raise their voices as much as possible, and articulate with prodigious velocity.

“The Arabian princesses and ladies,” says another traveller, "“are very beautiful, and being always sheltered from the sun, are very fair. The women of the inferior classes are not only naturally tawny, but are rendered much more so by the sun, and are of a disagreeable figure. They prick their lips with needles, and cover them with gunpowder, mixed with ox-gall, by which the lips are rendered blue and livid ever after. In like manner they prick the cheeks, and each side of the mouth and chin. They draw a line of black along the eye-lids, as also on the outward corner of each eye, that it may appear more expanded, for large and prominent eyes are considered the principal beauty of the Eastern women. To express the beauty of women, the Arabs say, “She has the eyes of the antelope.” To this animal they always compare their mistresses; and black eyes, or the eyes of the antelope, never fail to be the burden of their love songs. Than the antelope nothing can be more beautiful; and it particularly discovers a certain innocent fear, which bears a strong resemblance to the natural modesty and timidity of a young woman. The ladies, and women newly married, blacken the eye-brows, and make them unite on the middle of their forehead; they also prick their arms and hands, and form upon them figures of animals, flowers, &c. They also paint their nails of a reddish colour. The men paint the tails of their horses with this colour. The women wear rings in their ears, and bracelets upon their arms and legs.”

To this account it may be added, that the Arabs are all jealous of their wives, and that, whether they obtain them by purchase or carry them away by force, they treat them with, mildness and even with respect.

The Egyptians, though they live so near the Arabians, have the same religion, and are governed by the same laws, yet they are very different in their manners and customs. In all the towns and villages along the Nile, for example, we meet with girls set apart for the embraces of travellers, without any obligation to pay for such indulgence. For this purpose they have houses always full of these girls; and when a rich man finds himself dying, as an act of pious charity he disburses a sum of money to provide damsels and an edifice of this kind. When any of these girls have a male child, the mother is obliged to rear him till the age of three or four, after which she carries him to the patron of the house, or his heir, who employs him as one of his slaves. The girls, however, remain with the mother, and when of a proper age they supply her place.

The Egyptian women are very brown, their eyes ate lively, their stature rather low, their mode of dress by no means agreeable, and their conversation very tiresome. They are remarkable for bearing a number of children; and some travellers pretend, that the fertility occasioned by the inundation of the Nile is not confined to the earth, but to the human and animal creation. They add, that by drinking of the Nile, or by bathing in it, the first two months after its overflow, which are those of July and August, the women generally conceive; that in April and May they are as generally delivered, and that cows almost always bring forth two calves, a ewe two lambs, &c.

To reconcile this benign influence of the Nile with the troublesome disorders occasioned by it would be difficult. Granger says, that in Egypt the air is unwholesome; that the eyes are peculiarly subject to diseases so inveterate, that many lose their sight; that in this country there are more blind people than in any other; and that during the increase of the Nile the generality of the inhabitants are afflicted with obstinate dysenteries, occasioned by the water being then strongly impregnated with saline particles.

Though the women of Egypt are commonly small, yet the men are of a good height. Both, generally speaking, are of an olive colour, and the more we remove from Cairo the more tawny we find the natives, till we come to the confines of Nubia, where they are nearly as black as the Nubians themselves.

The greatest defects of the Egyptians are, idleness and cowardice. They do nothing the whole day but drink coffee, smoke tobacco, sleep, or chatter in the streets. They are extremely ignorant, yet are full of the most ridiculous vanity. Though they cannot deny they have lost that nobleness they once possessed, their skill in sciences and in arms, their history, and even their language; and that from an illustrious nation they have degenerated into a people dastardly and enslaved, they yet scruple not to despise all other nations, and to take offence at advising them to send their children to Europe, to acquire a knowledge of the arts and sciences.

Of a distinct origin are the numerous natives that inhabit the coasts of the Mediterranean, between Egypt and the western ocean, as well as the extensive territories from Barbary to Mount Atlas. The Arabs, Vandals, Spaniards, and, more anciently, the Romans and the Egyptians, peopled these regions with men very different from each other. The inhabitants of the mountains of Arras, for example, have an aspect and complexion very different from those of their neighbours; their skin, far from being tawny, is fair and ruddy; and their hair is of a deep yellow, while that of the adjacent nations is black; circumstances which have led Dr. Shaw to suppose them the descendants of the Vandals, who, on their expulsion, might have settled in some parts of these mountains.

The women of the kingdom of Tripoli, though so near to those of Egypt, have yet no resemblance to them. The former are tall; and they even consider length of stature as an essential article of beauty. Like the Arabian women they mark their cheeks and chin; and as in Turkey they so highly esteem red hair, they even paint that of their children with vermilion.

In general the Moorish women affect to wear their hair down to their heels, and those whose hair is less in length, use false locks; and they all adorn their tresses with ribbons. The hair of the eye-lids they tinge with the dust of black lead; and the dark colour which this gives to the eyes they esteem a singular beauty. In this circumstance, indeed they differ not from the women of ancient Greece and Rome.

Most part of the Moorish women would pass for handsome even in Europe. The skin of their children is exceedingly fair and delicate; and though the boys, by being exposed to the sun, soon grow swarthy, yet the girls, who are kept more at home, retain their beauty till the age of 30, when they commonly cease to have children. At this premature sterility they have less cause to repine, as they are often mothers at the age of 11, and grandmothers at that of 22; and living as long as European women, they commonly see several generations.

In reading Marmol’s description of these different nations, it is evident that the inhabitants of the mountains of Barbary are fair, and those of the sea-coasts and plains are very brown and tawny. He says expressly, that the inhabitants of Capex, a city of Tunis, are poor people exceedingly black; that those who dwell on the river Dara, in the kingdom of Morocco, are very tawny; and that the inhabitants of Zarhou, and of the mountains of Fez, on the side of Mount Atlas, are white. He adds, that the latter are so little affected by cold, that even in frost and snow their dress is very slight; and through the whole year they go with the head uncovered. The Numidians, he says, are rather tawny than black; the women are tolerably fair, and even lusty, though the men are meagre; but that the inhabitants of Guaden, at the extremity of Numidia, and on the frontiers of Senegal, are rather black that tawny; that, on the other hand, in the province of Dara, the women are beautiful and fresh-coloured; and that throughout the whole regions negro-slaves of both sexes are numerous.

The difference then is not great among the nations that dwell between the 20th, 30th, or 35th degree north latitude, in the old continent; that is, from the Mogul empire to Barbary, and even from the Ganges to the western coasts of Morocco, if we except the varieties occasioned by the mixture with more northern nations, by which some of these vast countries have been conquered and peopled. In this territory, the extent of which is not less than 2000 leagues, the inhabitants are in general brown and tawny, yet well made, and tolerably handsome.

If we next examine those who live in climates more temperate we shall find that the people northward of Mogul and Persia, the Armenians, Turks, Georgians, Mingrelians Circassians, Greeks, and the Europeans at large, are the most fair and handsome in the world; and that however remote Cashmire may be from Spain, or Circassia from France, yet situated nearly at the same distance from the equator, the resemblance between the natives is singularly striking.

The people of Cashmire, says Bernier, are celebrated for beauty; they are as well made as the Europeans; they have nothing of the Tartar visages; nor have they that flat nose, and those pig’s eyes we met with among their neighbours. The women are particularly handsome; and it is very common for strangers, on coming to the court of Mogul, to provide themselves with wives from Cashmire, in order to have children that may pass for true Moguls.

The natives of Georgia are of a more refined extraction than those of Cashmire. In the whole of that country we find not an ugly face; and the women enjoy from Nature graces superior to those of any other race. They are tall and well-shaped; their waist is exceedingly delicate, and their faces are truly charming. The men are also very handsome; and, from their natural ingenuity, were it not counteracted by a wretched education, which renders them ignorant and vicious, they might successfully cultivate the arts and sciences. In no country whatever, perhaps, are libertinism and drunkenness carried to so great a pitch as in Georgia. Chardin says, that even the clergy are exceedingly addicted to wine; that, in the character of slaves, they retain a number of concubines, and that at this custom, as being general and even authorised, no person takes offence. He adds, that the prefect of the Capuchins assured him, that the Patriarch of Georgia publicly declares, that he who, at the grand festivals, as those of Easter and Christmas, does not get drunk, is unworthy to be called a Christian, and ought to be excommunicated. With all their vices the Georgians are a civil and humane people, little subject to passion, but irreconcileable enemies when provoked, and have conceived an antipathy.

“The women of Circassia,” says Struys, “are also exceedingly fair and beautiful. Their complexion has the finest tints, their forehead is large and smooth, and, without the aid of art, their eye-brows are so delicate, that they appear as curved threads of silk. Their eyes are large, expressive, and full of fire; their noses finely shaped, and their lips perfect vermilion; their mouths are small, and constantly expressive of smiles, and their chins form the termination of a perfect oval. Their necks and breasts are admirably formed; their stature is tall, and the shape of their body easy; their skin is white as snow, and their hair of the most beautiful black. They wear a little black stuff cap, over which is fastened a roller of the same colour; but, what is truly ridiculous, the widows, instead of this roller, wear the bladder of an ox, or a cow, blown out as much as possible, which disfigures them amazingly. In summer the inferior classes wear nothing but a shift, which is open down to the middle, and is generally blue, yellow, or red. Though tolerably familiar with strangers, they are faithful to their husbands, who are by no means jealous of them.”

Tavernier says also, that the women of Comania and Circassia are, like those of Georgia, very shapely and beautiful; that they retain the freshness of their complexion till the age of 45 or 50; that they are all very industrious, and often employed in the most servile offices. In marriage these people possess an uncommon degree of liberty. If the husband is not contented with his wife, and he makes his complaint first, the lord of the district sends for the wife, orders her to be sold, and provides the husband with another. If the woman complains first, her husband is taken from her, and she is left at her freedom.

The Mingrelians are said to be as beautiful, and as well shaped as the Georgians or Circassians; and, indeed, they all seem to be of the same race. The women of Mingrelia, says Chardin, are very handsome, have a majestic air, their faces and forms are admirable, and have a look so engaging as to attract every beholder. Those who are less handsome, or advanced in years, daub their eye-brows, cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin, with paint; the rest only paint the eye-brows. They bestow every possible attention to their dress, which is similar to that of the Persians. They are lively, civil, and obliging, yet full of perfidy, and there is no wickedness they will not put in practice, in order to obtain, to preserve, or get rid of a lover. The men have likewise many bad qualities. They are all bred up to thievery, which they make a business and amusement. With infinite satisfaction do they relate the different depredations they have committed, for which they are extolled, and derive their greatest glory. In Mingrelia, falsehood, robbery, and murder, they call good actions; whoredom, bigamy, and incest, virtuous habits. The husbands are little disturbed with jealousy; and when he detects his wife in the actual embraces of her gallant, he has only a right to demand a pig from him, which is his only atonement, his only revenge; and the pig they generally eat between them. They pretend it is a very good and laudable custom to have a number of wives and concubines, because they can have a greater increase of children, whom they can sell for gold, or exchange for goods or provisions. The Mingrelian slaves are not very dear. A man from the age of 25 to 40 is purchased for 15 crowns, and if older for eight or ten, a handsome girl, from 13 to 18 for 20 crowns; a woman for 12 crowns; and a child for three or four.

The Turks, who purchase a vast number of these slaves, are so intermixed with Armenians, Georgians, Turcomans, Arabs, Egyptians, and even Europeans, it is hardly possible to distinguish the real natives of Asia Minor, Syria, and the rest of Turkey. The Turkish men are generally robust, and tolerably well made, and it is rare to find a deformed person among them. The women are also commonly beautiful, and free from blemishes; they are very fair, because they seldom stir from home, and never without being veiled.

According to Belon, there is not a woman in Asia whose complexion is not fresh as a rose, whose skin is not fair, delicate, and smooth as velvet. Of the earth of China, diluted, they form a kind of ointment, with which they rub all over their bodies before they bathe. Some likewise paint their eye-brows black, while others eradicate the hairs with rusma, and paint themselves eye-brows in the form of a cresent, which are beautiful when viewed at a distance, but quite the reverse when examined more closely. This custom is very ancient. Among the Turks, he adds, neither men nor women wear hair on any part of the body, the head and chin excepted; that they use rusma mixed with quick lime, and diluted in water, which they apply before they go into the warm bath, and so soon as they begin to sweat in thus bathing the hair rubs off with the hand, and the skin remains soft and smooth, as if there had never been any upon it. He remarks further, that in Egypt there is a shrub called Alcanna, the leaves of which dried and powdered make a reddish yellow colour, which the women of Turkey use to colour their hair, hands, and feet. With this they also tinge the hair of their infants, and the manes of their horses. The Turkish women employ every art to add to their beauty, as do also the Persian, but the articles they use are different, as the men of the former prefer red, and those of the latter brown complexions.

It has been pretended that the Jews, who came originally from Syria, and Palestine, have the same brown complexion they had formerly. As Misson, however, justly observes, the Jews of Portugal alone are tawny. As they always marry with their own tribe, the complexion of the parents is transmitted to the child, and thus with little diminution preserved, even in the northern countries. The German Jews, those of Prague, for example, are not more swarthy than the other Germans.

The present natives of Judea resemble the other Turks, being only a little more brown than those of Constantinople, or on the coasts of the Black Sea, in like manner as the Arabians are more brown than the Syrians, from their situation being more southern.

It is the same with the Greeks. Those of the northern parts are more fair, while those of the southern islands, or provinces, are brown. Generally speaking, the Greek women are more handsome and vivacious than the Turks; they also enjoy a greater degree of liberty. Carreri says, the women of the island of Chio are fair, handsome, lively, and very familiar with the men; that the girls see strangers without restraint; and that they all have their necks uncovered. He likewise says, that the Greek women have the finest hair in the world, especially in the vicinage of Constantinople; but that those whose hair descends to the heels, have features less regular.

The Greeks consider large eyes, and elevated eye-brows, as a very great beauty in either sex; and we may remark in all busts and medals of ancient Greeks, the eyes are much larger than those of the ancient Romans.

The inhabitants of the Archipelago are excellent swimmers and divers. According to Thevenot, they are trained to the practice of bringing up goods which have been sunk into the sea; and that in the island of Samos, a young man has no chance of obtaining a wife, unless he can dive eight, and Dapper says twenty, fathoms. The latter adds, that in some of the islands, as in Nicaria, they have a strange custom of speaking to each other at a distance, and that their voices are so strong, that when a quarter of a league, nay even a whole league asunder, they maintain a conversation, though not without long intervals, as after a question is asked, the answer does not arrive for several seconds.

The Greeks, Neapolitans, Sicilians, Corsicans, Sardinians, and Spaniards, being situated nearly under the same line, are uniform in point of complexion. Those people are more swarthy than the English, French, Germans, Polanders, Moldavians, Circassians, and all the other inhabitants of the north of Europe, till we advance to Lapland; where, as already observed, we find another race of men. In travelling through Spain, we begin to perceive a difference of colour even at Bayonne. There the women have a complexion more brown, and eyes more brilliant.

The Spaniards are meagre, rather short, yet handsome. They are yellow and swarthy; but their eyes are beautiful, their teeth well ranged, and their features are regular. Their children are born fair and handsome; but as they grow up their complexion changes surprisingly; the air and sun render them yellow and tawny; nor is it difficult to distinguish a Spaniard from a native of any other country in Europe. In some provinces of Spain, as in the environs of the river Bidassoa, it is remarked, the inhabitants have ears of an immoderate size.

Black or brown hair begins to be rather unfrequent in England, Flanders, Holland, and in the northern provinces of Germany; nor is it hardly to be seen in Denmark, Sweden, or Roland. According to LinnÆus, the Goths are tail, their hair smooth and white as silver, and the iris of their eye is bluish. The Finlanders are muscular and fleshy; the hair long, and of a yellowish white, and the iris of the eye is of a deep yellow.

In Sweden the women are exceedingly fruitful. Rudbeck says, that they commonly bear 8, 10, or 12 children, and not unoften 18, 20, 24, 28, and even 30. He adds, that the men often live to the age of 100, some to that of 140; that one Swede lived to 156 years, and another to 161.

This author is an enthusiast with regard to his country, and according to him, Sweden is the first country in the world. This fertility in the women does not imply a greater propensity to love. In cold climates the inhabitants are far more chaste than in warm; and though they produce more children in Sweden, the women are less amorous than those of Spain or Portugal. It is universally known, that the northern nations have to so great a degree overrun all Europe, that historians have distinguished the north by the appellation of Officina Gentium.

The author of the “Voyages Historiques de l’Europe,” agrees with Rudbeck, that there are more instances of longevity in Sweden, than in any other European nation; and that he saw several persons who, he was assured, had passed the age of 150. This longevity he attributes to the salubrity of their climate; and of the people of Denmark he makes the same remark; the Danes, he adds, are tall, robust, and of a lively and florid complexion; that the women are likewise very fair, well made, and exceedingly prolific.

Before the reign of Czar Peter I. we are told, the Muscovites had not emerged from barbarism. Born in slavery, they were ignorant, brutal, cruel, without courage and without manners. Men and women bathed promiscuously in stoves heated to a degree intolerable to all persons but themselves; and on quitting this warm bath they plunged, like the Laplanders, into cold water. Their food was homely; and their favourite dishes were cucumbers or melons, brought from Astracan, which in summer they preserved in a mixture of water, flour, and salt. From ridiculous scruples they refrained from the use of several meats, particularly pigeons and veal. Yet even at this period of unrefinement, the women were skilled in the arts of colouring their checks, plucking out their eye-brows, and painting artificial ones. They also adorned themselves with pearls and jewels, and their garments were made of rich and valuable stuffs. From these circumstances does it not appear, that the barbarism of the Muscovites was near a close, and that their sovereign had less trouble in polishing them than some authors have endeavoured to insinuate? They are now a people civilized, commercial, studious Of the arts and sciences, fond of spectacles, and ingenious novelties.

Some authors have said that the air of Muscovy is so salutary, as to prevent its being visited with a pestilence. In the annals of the country, however, it is recorded, that in the year 1741, and during the six subsequent years, the Muscovites were dreadfully afflicted with a contagious distemper, insomuch that even the constitution of their descendants has been altered by it; few of the inhabitants attaining now the age of an 100, whereas before that period numbers lived much beyond it.

The Ingrians and Carelians, who inhabit the northern provinces of Muscovy, and are the original natives of the country round Petersburgh, are men of vigour and robust constitutions. Their complexion is generally fair; they resemble the Finlanders, and speak the same language, which has no affinity to that of any other European nation.

By this historical description of all the different inhabitants of Europe and Asia, it appears that the variation in their colour depends greatly, though not entirely, on the climates. There are many other causes, by which not only the colour, but even the form and features may be influenced; and among the principal may be reckoned the nature of the food, and the manners, or mode of living. A civilized people, who enjoy a life of ease and tranquillity, and who, by the superintendance of a well regulated government, are protected from the fear and oppression of misery, will, from these reasons alone, be more handsome and vigorous than those of a savage and careless nation, of which each individual, deriving no assistance from society, is obliged to provide for his own subsistence, to sustain alternately the excesses of hunger and the effects of unwholesome food; to be alternately exhausted with labour and lassitude; and to undergo the rigours of a severe climate, without being able to shelter himself from them; to act, in a word, more frequently like an animal than a man. In the supposition that two nations, thus differently circumstanced, were even to live in the same climate, there can be no doubt but that the savage people would be more ugly, tawny, diminutive, and more wrinkled, than those enjoying civilized society. Should the former possess any advantage, it would consist in the superior strength, or rather hardiness of the body. It might likewise happen that among the savage people there would be fewer instances of lameness or bodily deformities; for in a civilized state, where one individual contributes to the support of another, where the strong has no power over the weak, where the qualities of the body are less esteemed than those of the mind, men thus defective live and even multiply; but among a savage people, as each individual subsists and defends himself merely by his corporal strength and address, those who are unhappily born weak and defective, or who become sick or disabled, soon cease to form a part of their number.

We must then admit of three causes as jointly productive of the varieties which we have remarked in the different nations of the earth. First, the influence of the climate; secondly, the food; and thirdly, the manners; the two last having great dependence on the former. But before we lay down the reasons on which this opinion is founded, it is necessary to describe the people of Africa and America in the same manner as we have those of Europe and Asia.

The nations of the whole northern part of Africa, from the Mediterranean to the Tropic, we have already mentioned. All those beyond the Tropic, from the Red Sea to the Ocean, an extent of 100 or 150 leagues, are of the Moorish species, though so tawny that they appear almost black. The women are rather fairer than the men, and tolerably handsome. Among these Moors there is a vast number of mulattoes, who are of a black still more deep, their mothers being negro women, whom the Moors purchase, and by whom they have a number of children.

Beyond this territory, in the 17th or 18th degree of north latitude, we 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.