VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



1329 



nations are composed of an assemblage of 

 tribes inhabiting a mountainous country, speak- 

 ing languages almost unintelligible to each 

 other, and remarkably isolated from the na- 

 tions which inhabit the countries border- 

 ing on theirs. The beauty of form and feature, 

 and the delicacy of complexion, which charac- 

 terise individuals and families amonjj these 



Fig. 826. 



Portrait of a young Circassian, belonging to tfie suite 

 of the Persian Ambassador. (From a portrait 

 taken in Paris by M. A. Colin.) 



tribes, are well known (/% 826.) and have 

 led to a regular consignment of the youth of 

 both sexes to the Turkish market, the females 

 to be introduced into the harems, whilst the 

 youths are valued for their superior energy 

 and intelligence, and are frequently adopted 

 as sons. But these attributes are for the 

 most part confined to the families of the chiefs; 

 and they are carefully cherished by exemp- 

 tion from labour, and by seclusion from undue 

 exposure. The common people, who are en- 

 gaged in the cultivation of the soil, are de- 

 scribed by travellers as being for the most 

 part coarse and unshapely. Now from a 

 careful comparison and analysis of the lan- 

 guages of these races, Dr. Latham and Mr. 

 Norris have independently arrived, on different 

 grounds (the one from the words and the 

 other from the grammar), at the same result ; 

 namely, that they are aptotic, or destitute 

 of inflexions, like the Chinese ; and that the 

 people must have been of Mongolian origin, 

 but separated from the common stock at a 

 very early period ; the perpetuation of the 

 low development of their language being fa- 

 voured by the peculiar characters of the 



VOL. IV. 



country in which they located themselves, 

 whilst these same characters tended to modify 

 their physical conformation. For the area 

 which they occupy is at once temperate, 

 mountainous, and wooded ; " in other words," 

 as Dr. Latham remarks, " the reverse of the 

 true Mongol areas." And thus, if this view 

 should be confirmed, we must regard the 

 very people which has been selected as fur- 

 nishing the type of the most perfect con- 

 formation, as an improved race of a decidedly 

 inferior stock. 



The Negro type is one which is not unfre- 

 quently cited as an example of the perma- 

 nence of the physical characters of races, and 

 especially of types of cranial conformation. 

 The existing Ethiopian physiognomy is said 

 to agree with the representations transmitted 

 to us from the remotest times in Egyptian 

 pictures ; and this physiognomy, it is further 

 maintained, continues to be transmitted un- 

 changed from parent to child, even where the 

 transportation of a Negro population to tem- 

 perate climates and civilised associates (as in 

 the United States of America) has entirely 

 changed the external conditions of their ex- 

 istence. Now it is perfectly true that the 

 Negro races which continue to inhabit their 

 original localities, and maintain their barba- 

 rous habits of life, retain the prognathous 

 type ; and this is precisely what we should 

 expect. But it is not true that no modifica- 

 tion has taken place in them, either under 

 the influence of civilisation, or from a change 

 in the physical conditions of their existence. 

 For the most elevated forms of skull occurring 

 among the African nations, are found in those 

 which have emerged in a greater or less degree 

 from their original barbarism ; their civilis- 

 ation having been due to external influences 

 brought to bear upon them. We shall here- 

 after see that there is strong evidence that 

 even the Syro- Arabian or Semitic nations 

 may be referred to the African stock ; at 

 any rate, there are numerous tribes in the 

 interior of Africa, whose affinity with the true 

 Negroes cannot be disputed, and which yet 

 present a far superior cranial organisation ; 

 so that we must either regard the one form to 

 be the result of improvement, or the other to 

 have preceded from degeneration. In regard 

 to the transplanted Negroes, it is obvious that 

 the time which has elapsed since their re- 

 moval, is as yet too short to justify us in ex- 

 pecting any considerable alteration in cranial 

 configuration. Many of the Negroes now 

 living in the West Indian islands are natives 

 of Africa ; and a large proportion of the Negro 

 population, both there and in the United 

 States, are removed by no more than one or 

 two descents from their African progenitors. 

 The climate, too, of the southern states of 

 the North American Union, as of the West 

 Indies, is not very different from that of the 

 Guinea Coast, in regard to temperature ; and 

 the low undrained character of much of the 

 soil which they are employed in cultivating, 

 still further tends to keep up the correspond- 

 ence. Still, according to the concurrent 



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