Viewing page 45 of 130

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

116

connected also, in some measure, with the manner of living, and habits of the people. And this conclusion is corroborated by another fact existing within the region of tropical Africa. Many individuals are seen among the most deformed of their tribes, in whom these features are far from being disagreeable. These probably belong to the better classes of the people spoken of by Barbot. And there are several nations in that zone, and even on the western coast, in whom, what is peculiarly denominated the African countenance, is hardly to be distinguished.*

With regard to the contraction of the eyes, and eye-brows, the wrinkled appearance of the forehead, and the general expression of silliness, and uneasiness so frequently exhibited in the features of the aboriginal African, we may remark, that it is that

*Aikin says, "the people of Congo are represented as having little of the negro feature, though perfectly black with woolly hair." Geog. p. 299. edit. Phil. printed for F. Nichols, 1806. In the same edit. p. 294, he says of the Kaffers, or Kousis, "with this people European travelers have become acquainted in their expeditions from the colony of the Cape, and have found a remarkably strong and well made race, brave, and not unacquainted with the arts of life, and much superior in appearance to the neighbouring African tribes."


117

figure and habit of countenance which is the natural consequence of the intense ardor of the sun's rays darted directly on the head.*

Although the Barbary states, bordering the south-ern shore of the Mediterranean, lie under a milder

* As the intensity of the sun's rays falling on the superior parts of the head has a tendency to contract the forehead and the eyes, will not this effect, in consequence of the natural relations between different parts of the system, as already mentioned, contribute to the dilation of the parts below, whence may be occasioned, in a degree, the unsightly protrusion of the mouth?-

In conformity with these observations, I find a reflection made by Mr. Volney in his travels through Egypt: "The countenance of the negroes, says he, represents precisely the state of contraction which our faces assume when strongly affected by heat;- The eye-brows are knit, the cheeks rise, the eye-lids are drawn together, and the mouth pouts out. This state of contraction to which the features are perpetually exposed in the hot climates of the negroes is become the peculiar characteristic of their countenance." And coincident, in some degree, with observations which I have before made on the effects of climate on the Tartar countenance, he adds;- " Excessive cold, wind, and snow produce the same effect, and thus we discover the same faces among the Tartars." Translation of Volney's Travels, Dublin edition, 1788, p.49.- The last loose expression of Mr. Volney might lead an incautious reader into an error. The negro and the Tartar face are not the same, although both are distinguished by a depression of the middle face, and protrusion of the parts about the mouth.

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 14:35:36