Hollanders as contributing to the formation of their peculiar physiognomy.

The custom of carrying the children on the back has been referred to, in order to explain the flat nose and swoln lips of the Negro. In the violent motions required in their hard labour, as in beating or pounding millet, &c. the face of the young one is said to be constantly thumping against the back of them other. This account is seriously quoted by BLUMENBACH.

The testimonies concerning the employment of pressure, in order to flatten the nose, are so numerous and circumstantial, that we cannot doubt of the attempt being made. It is practised among the Negroes, Hottentots, Brasilians *, Sumatrans †, and South Sea Islanders: we have, however, no proof that the figure of the part is ever changed by such attempts; while, on the contrary, it can be shewn most clearly, that the well-known flatness of the nose is the natural formation of the organ in the Negro, and the notion of its being produced by pressure is justly ridiculed by that intelligent observer, Dr. WINTERBOTTOM §. The children of African parents in Europe, America, and other situa

* DE LERY, Voyage en la Terre du Brésil; pp. 98, 265. ↑ MARSDEN, History of Sumatra; p. 44.

"The figure of the nose scems to have been an object worthy the attention of the midwives at Otaheite; and since they are of opinion that a broad somewhat flat nose is ornamental, they depress the nose immediately after the birth of the child, and repeat this action upon the child while it is still tender." "The women of the Hottentots squeeze the noses of their children flat with the thumb (KOLBE, Description of the Cape of Good Hope; i. 52); and in Macassar they flatten the noses of the children, and repeat the operation several times every day, softening the nose at the same time with oil or warm water." FORSTER, Observations on a Voyage round the World; p. 593, 4. See also p. 556.

Account of the native Africans; i. p. 201.

tions, where there are opportunities of knowing that no means are used to flatten the nose, resemble in all respects those born in Africa. Why, indeed, should artificial causes be adduced to account for the flatness of this part in so many dark-coloured races, rather than for its convexity and prominence in others? Do not the various parts of the countenance harmonize equally in both cases? Would it improve a Negro or a Chinese face to introduce into it an aquiline nose? In short, these flat noses have all the characters of natural construction about them, equally with those of a different figure, and exhibit none of the marks of violence and artificial change, which are seen in the foreheads of some Caribs. Moreover, the diversities extend so generally through the whole bony fabric of the head, and are observable in so many parts where external pressure could have no influence, not to mention that they consist, in many instances, of formations just the reverse of what pressure could effect, that we cannot have the smallest hesitation in rejecting entirely the notion of external influence, and ascribing them to native variety. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact, that all the peculiarities of the Negro cranium exist in the foetus; that the prominent jaws, flat nose, and all other characters, are found as strongly marked in the youngest embryo, as in the adult.

"I examined," says SOEMMERRING, "a Negro embryo and a child only a few months old, and found the jaws as prominent, the lower part of the nose as broad and flat as in the parents. There was no vestige of any violence; but the form of the nose was naturally different from that of white children. CAMPER* examined several years ago,

In his Lecture on the Origin and Colour of the Blacks, describing the foetus of an Angola Negress, he says, "You see that the nose, the lips, the whole face, correspond completely to those

with the same view, Negroes of various ages, including fœtuses. He observed nothing particular in the nose; but he concluded that this organ will be less prominent, other circumstances remaining the same, when the parts below it come forwards, and that the lips must be larger and thicker in order to cover the teeth completely.

"My friend BLUMENBACH asserts, from the examination of two Negro children in the Royal Museum at Göttingen, what BUFFON also maintained, that the flat noses are congenital, not artificial, and refers to the engravings of RUYSCH and SEBA in confirmation of the same point. LODER possesses a Negro embryo of four or four months and a half, in which the peculiar form of the nose and jaws is very plain *"

These arguments receive a further confirmation from three of the crania engraved by BLUMENBACH†; of a Jewish girl, five years old; a Burat child, a year and a half; and a newly-born Negro; in which the characters of the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Ethiopian varieties are as strongly represented as in the heads of adults. As these skulls are very characteristic, I have added an engraving of them to this work. (See PLATE XII.)

of adult Africans; you may be convinced that the nose is not depressed after birth, but that an immature being like this has already every lineament of its race." Kleinere Schriften; b. 1, st. 1, p. 43. * Ueber die korp. versch. § 4.

LUDWIG gives a similar testimony respecting two Negro embryos in his collection. Grundriss der Naturgeschichte der Menschen Speries, § 148, p. 121.

↑ Dec. altera, tab. 28, 29, 30.

CHAPTER V.

Varieties in Figure, Proportions, and Strength. The Ears; Effects of Art upon them, and in other Parts of the Body. The Mamma. Organs of Generation. Fabulous Varieties,

IN

consequence of the foramen magnum being placed further back in the head of the Negro than in that of the European (see p. 359), and of the head being consequently situated more forwards on the vertebral column in the former than in the latter, the occiput of the Negro projects less behind the spine. Hence a line drawn from the posterior extremity of the skull along the nape of the neck, which dips in considerably under the head in the European, is nearly straight in the African, as if a part of the cranium had been sliced off. The hind head is still farther reduced in the monkey kind.

Artists have taken great pains to determine the proportions which the parts of the human body, the head, neck, trunk, and limbs, bear to each other; and to discover the relative magnitudes of these, which ought to be found in the best-constructed frame; in short, to fix a standard of perfection, or the model of beauty. If only one kind of form and one set of proportions were consistent with strength and activity, it would be worth while to pay some attention to these laborious efforts of painters and sculptors at establishing how many times the length of the head is contained in the whole body, in the trunk, the upper or lower limbs; how many noses are in the head, &c. &c. Even then, the strange method they have adopted, of measuring certain ce

lebrated statues, seems as little likely to accomplish the professed object of instructing us in natural proportions, as the academic exercises of drawing old painted casts are to confer a power of representing living forms and attitudes. A little attention to nature, which is indeed too often neglected in learned investigations of proportions, and in academy studies, will convince us, that even in the same race individual varieties are endless in number and great in degree, without any diminution of strength and activity; and that forms and relations very different from each other may yet be thought equally beautiful by those who venture to judge without knowing the proportions of the ancient statues. Still greater differences exist between the several races of mankind; insomuch, that if we adopt for the model of beauty the standard of proportions discovered in the Greek statues, a great part of the human race will be cut off, by its very organisation, from all chance of participating in this endowment. When, however, we find that Hottentots and American savages will outrun wild animals in the chase, will pursue and hunt down even deer; that they will accomplish long journeys on foot over the most difficult countries, where there is no path to direct, and every obstacle to obstruct their progress; that the effeminate Hindoos, as we frequently call them, will keep up with horses, and perform astonishing journeys in a short time; that the South Sea Islanders amuse themselves for hours together by swimming about in the strongest surf, which would instantly destroy a boat or vessel; we shall be obliged to allow that the form and proportions to which we are most accustomed are not essential to bodily vigour and flexibility of movement. Our own inferiority in these respects arises, I am aware, from want of exercise, not from organic deficiency. Civilised man is ignorant of his own powers: he is not sensible how much he is weakened by cffeminacy, nor to what extent he might re