change upon the woolly hair of negroes has not been noticed: it has a considerable influence upon hair, for, in trade, hair the growth of England bears a higher value than that of the southern parts of France, and Spain.

adds, is not so resplendently white in the African as in whites, but is of a yellowish brown. These remarks are in some instances just; but a great variety occurs in the eye, except in its colour, which is invariably dark some are small, but we occasionally see them well

Moderate heat is favourable to the growth of the hair. The na-formed, large, and brilliant, partitives of Africa think it grows cularly in the women. quickest during the cool or rainy season; their hair turns white sooner in them than in Europeans, but even the old people among them are rarely bald. In hot climates the skins of Europeans become very hairy where exposed, especially on the backs of the hands this is a rare occurrence among the Africans, except in old people.

The eye-brows differ from the hair of the head in not being curled and woolly. In warm climates we commonly find the eyebrows remarkably large and black, to guard the eye against the too great influx of light; but in the African they are very seldom so long and bushy as in Europe. The same office appears to be performed by the eye-lashes, which in the negro are remarkably long, dense, and finely curved.

Professor Soemmering observes, that the opening formed by the eye-lids is smaller in the negro than in the European, and therefore less of the globe of the eye is visible in the former. The tunica adnata, or white of the eye, he

In men the white of the eye frequently appears to have a slight yellowish suffusion, not so clear or bright as in jaundice in white people; but this is not constant, and in consumptive cases the eye frequently gets the pearly whiteness so commonly attendant on that complaint in England.

The lips of the Africans are in general dark coloured, sometimes differing but little from the colour of the face. Sometimes a considerable tinge of red is seen in them, and in a few instances I have seen them nearly as red as the lips of Europeans, but they never have that beautiful rose colour which occurs in the delicate scrophulous habit in England. This redness of the lips has pro baly given occasion to the absurd story, already quoted, of a nation, living in the interior parts of Africa, whose lips are constantly bleeding, and, in order to prevent their mortifying, they are obliged to rub them with salt.

Professor Zimmerman considers the thick lips, flat nose, and particularly the woolly hair of ue

caricatured, are by no means con stant traits: on the contrary, almost every gradation of countenance may be met with, from the disgusting picture too commonly

groes, circumstances upon which the advocates for distinct races of mankind lay so much stress, as of no great moment. Thick lips are every where to be met with; they occur in the Eskimau and Kal-drawn of them, to the finest set muck, and among Europeans many of European features. Want of families may be pointed out which animation does not characterize have thick lips. Moreover, there them, and faces are often met with are nations of negroes, he adds, which express the various emotions which have neither thick lips nor of the mind with great energy. flat noses; the Joloffs, a negro Professor Camper remarks that nation between the Gambia and painters, in sketching the heads Senegal rivers, are very black, of Africans, give only black cobut, according to the testimony loured Europeans: more freof Moore, they have handsome quent opportunities of observing features, and neither broad noses them would have shewn him the nor thick lips. Pigafetta express-fallacy of this opinion. In drawly says, that the Congo negroesing the characteristic features of have black, curly, and frequent- any nation the maximum ought ly, red hair. He observes, they not to be taken, as is most freresembled the Portuguese prettyquently done, following the exmuch, except in colour; the iris ample of the Grecian artists, who was in some black, but in others formed to themselves an ideal of a bluish green, and they had beauty, which perhaps never exnot the thick lips of the Nubians.isted in any one human form, and Dampier, in his description of the in which expression of countecountry of Natal, on the east coast nance is nearly annihilated. of Africa, says, that the inhabitants were black, and had curly hair, but that they had rather a long face, well proportioned nose, white teeth, and an agreeable

countenance.

That wonderful diversity of feature, observable in men and animals, is referred by Professor Camper to the different angles formed by what he terms the facial line taken en profile. This is a line drawn from the projecting occurs among part of the forehead above the be met with in the nations of Eu-nose, to the extremity of the superope the sloping contracted fore-rior maxillary bone, between the head, small eyes, depressed nose, two front incisor teeth; which is thick lips, and projecting jaw, intersected by another line drawn with which the African is usually through the centre of the meatus

As great a variety of features these people as is to

softened, and assume a more elegant form. The Hungarians, originally sprung from the Laplanders, but placed in a temperate climate, and in the neighbourhood of Greece and Turkey, have ac

auditorious externus and the low- tion migrates from a cold to a temer part of the nostrils. The an-perate climate, their features are gle formed by these lines is most acute in birds, and becomes great er in animals as they approach nearer to the human species: in one species of ape it is 42°; in another, the simia sciurea Linn. it is 50°; in the negro 70°; inquired more handsome features. the European 80°; and in the most beautiful antique it forms an angle of 100°. This idea, though extremely ingenious, will probably not be found to stand the test of experience. Professor Blumenbach observes, that the skulls of very different nations, and which vary greatly in appearance from each other, possess the same facial line; and, on the contrary, skulls belonging to the same nation, which bear upon the whole a striking resemblance to each other, have a very different facial line. Thus in two skulls belonging to the professor, one of which belonged to a Congo negro, and the other to a Lithuanian, the facial line is nearly the same; but in two other skulls belonging to negroes, the facial line differs very remarkably. He further adds, that Camper has varied so much in his drawings from the rule he lays down, as to shew that there is much uncertainty in its use.features than are to be found Besides, the human features are upon the sea coast. Among those altered by such a variety of cir- of them whom either curiosity or cumstances, that they never can commerce had attracted to the be reduced to any exact standard. settlement at Sierra Leone, I saw a When a rude and ill-featured na- youth whose features were exactly

The Creoles in the West Indies resemble the native Americans in their high cheek bones and deepseated eyes. Among the Nova Scotia settlers at Sierra Leone the facial line is so much diversified that no conclusion can be drawn from it. Nations who live in barren countries, and experience a scarcity of food, are usually of a diminutive size: the Bedouin Arabs are of small stature, and are remarked for the smallness of their hands and feet. A fuller diet produces a corresponding change; and it is a well known fact, that the slaves in the West Indies, who are humanely treated and well fed, are better made than the others, and acquire more of the European cast of features. Civilization has also a considerable effect upon the countenance, and perhaps to this it may be owing that the Foolas have in general more regular and delicate

nence have asserted that man originally walked upon four feet, and was in fact the same with the oran outang. There is reason, however, to suspect the accuracy of the figures which we possess of the oran outang; and it seems probable that it is indebted for much of its human appearance to the complaisance of painters. Professor Ludwig, in his excellent

of the Grecian mould, and whose person might have afforded to the statuary a model of the Apollo Belvidere. Many of the children also of the Nova Scotian settlers, who are born at Free Town, Sierra Leone, are distinguishable from those of Europeans only by their complexion. An opinion has very generally prevailed, that the flat nose of the African is occasioned by the mother press-work, asserts, that the representaing it down after birth; this is just as false as the notion that the curvature of the thigh bone is occasioned by the weight of the child resting on the nurse's arm: both these are original formations, as they are seen in the fœtus. "Should we not deem it very ridiculous, if a travelling or philosophic negro, or Calmuck, in describing the particular forms of our features, were gravely to assert, that our midwives, mothers, or nurses, pulled us by the nose du-oran outang but such as are perring our infant days, in order to give it the requisite length *?"

Various opinions have been formed respecting the rank which the African holds in the scale of creation, and many attempts have been made to depreciate his claim to the dignity of man. Owing to the resemblance which the oran outang is said to bear the human species, and perhaps from a wish to overturn the only rational and satisfactory account we have of the creation, some writers of emi

*Camper's Works, by Cogan.

tations of the oran outang, by Tyson, Edwards, Daubenton, and Allemand, are defective and even imaginary. Baron von Wurmb also positively declares, since the time that Bontius resided at Batavia, about the middle of the last century, an oran outang, such as is represented by him, has never been seen there, or in any of the neighbouring countries. The oldest and most experienced Javanese, he continues, know no other

fect apes; and in the Malay language they distinguish only two species of apes without tails, which Buffon has classed under the titles pongos and jockos. These circumstances appear to have misled naturalists, who have been led still further astray by their anxiety to trace every link of the chain with which nature is supposed to connect her works. In support of this strange opinion, and agreeable to the spirit of systematizing which generally prevails, the African has been pointed out as

change of good offices, and moreover add, that many of the blacks surpass their brothers the whites as well in understanding as in the fineness of their shape. It is cu

ty of forms authors have endeavoured to diversify the human species, supposing no doubt that Nature loved to indulge her fondnes for variety in producing races of men according to their distort

the connecting link between the homo sapiens, and his supposed progenitor the oran outang. The learned and accurate Professor Soemmering has, with much anatomical skill, compared the orga-rious to observe into what a varienization of the African with that of the European, European, and has pointed out several circumstances in which they differ; though some of these are of so trifling a nature, that they would probably have escaped a less accurate and in-ed fancies. telligent observer. At the same time it must be remarked, that the observations have been drawn from too few subjects, and many of the deviations, upon which much stress is laid, are such as occur occasionally in the dissection of European bodies. In justice to Professor Soemmering it ought to be observed that in prosecuting this comparative inquiry he attended solely to the appearances as they presented themselves, without having been biassed on instituting his observations by any preconceived theory. He therefore does not hesitate to consider them as brethren entitled to an inter

All these opinions may be finally answered in the works of an elegant author, who observes, that "of all animals, the differences between mankind are the smallest. Of the lower races of creatures the changes are so great as often entirely to disguise the natural animal, and to distort or to disfigure its shape. But the chief differences in man are rather taken from the tincture of his skin than the variety of his figure; and in all climates he presents his erect deportment and the marked superiority of his form ⚫."

* Goldsmith's Animated Nature.

INTERESTING EXTRACTS

From "An Essay on the Superstitions, Customs, and Arts, common to the ancient Egyptians, Abyssinians, and Ashantees."

BY T. EDWARD BOWDICH, ESQ.

The traditions of emigration, in the Ashantee and the neighnot of the whole population but of particular families, so current

bouring nations, the numerous exceptions to the negro counten