May 1, 1867.] 



HABDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Ill 



mountains in" the East. The Arabs of Muscat, on 

 the eastern part of the peninsula, are described as 

 resembling Mulattoes in colour, of a sickly yellow 

 hue, with a deeper brownish tinge about the eyes, 

 neck, and joints. Voluey says that some of the 

 Bedouins are black, and the Arabs of Nubia whom 

 I have previously described, are assuredly so. 

 Here are the three gradations — yellow, brown, 

 and black. Singularly enough the same conditions 

 which produce blackness seem also to produce 

 the crisp and curly hair erroneously called "wool," 

 for Bruce says that the tribes who inhabit 

 the middle of the deserts have locks somewhat 

 crisped, extremely fine, and approaching the woolly 

 hair of the negro. 



It has always been noticed that brown individuals 

 were very numerous amongst black nations, such as 

 the Negroes, Australians, and Hindoos, especially 

 amongst those inhabiting the healthier districts of 

 their respective countries ; this otherwise inex- 

 plicable fact is satisfactorily solved by adopting the 

 theory that it is the brown nations which under 

 favourable circumstances become black. For- 

 tunately we are not left only to conjecture upon 

 this subject, for Winwood Beade tells us in his 

 " Savage Africa," that the Camma tribes inhabiting 

 the interior of the Gabun country have entirely 

 changed their complexion since they came down to 

 the coast for the purpose of trade with Europeans. 



Within the memory of man it was rare to find a 

 black individual amongst them, now they have all 

 become black. There is collateral evidence on this 

 point, for higher up the coast nearer the Senegal 

 the red Foulahs (who are strongly suspected to 

 have been once white) have been swallowed up so 

 entirely in the black Foulahs, who have come to the 

 French and English settlements to trade, as to be 

 practically extinct. This has been hitherto attri- 

 buted to intermarriage with the natives ; but, as 

 there is no proof of its having been carried on to an 

 extent sufficient to account for such a transforma- 

 tion, it seems most reasonable to consider it a 

 parallel case to that cited by Winwood Beade. 



This gentleman, in order to account for the self- 

 evident fact that the great majority of the Negro 

 race are actually brown, and not black as we have 

 been accustomed to consider them, broaches a 

 theory well worthy of consideration ; he asserts, and 

 strongly supports the assertion, that the distinctive 

 blackness of the West African Negro, as well as 

 his other physical defects, are the result of disease. 

 Dr. Livingstone tells us,'in his recent work on "The 

 Zambezi and its Tributaries," that the negroes there 

 are light brown in colour, and that none of the 

 peculiar malformations of the frame which we 

 have come to regard as inseparable from the 

 true negro are known, so that the question is 

 seriously suggested, how is it that the negro of 

 the Guinea coast differs so much from his congeners 



on the East coast ? Winwood Beade believes that 

 the solution to this question is to be found in the 

 pestilential climate of the West coast which has 

 become quite proverbial. I would go further, and 

 would suggest that in the case of every black nation 

 throughout the world, its blackness is the result of 

 disease. It is a significant fact that the same con- 

 ditions as those prevailing in West Africa, exist in 

 every land where black races are fouud, and these 

 conditions are a flat and swampy country, usually a 

 sea-coast, intense heat, rank vegetation, and a more 

 or less pestilential climate. Who can deny that 

 the Andamans, the lowlands of the Indian Penin- 

 sula, and the shores of most of the East India 

 Islands, exactly answer to this description ? 

 Wherever the land is higher and the climate more 

 healthy, the race is found to be more muscular and 

 lighter (browner) in colour, as is the case in 

 Australia, Papua, Fiji, Yoruba, and the South 

 Indian highlands. 



That the blackness is caused by disease is proved 

 by the fact that the more intense the colour the 

 more degraded the mind, the more stunted and 

 distorted the body, and the shorter the average 

 duration of life become. In the Hindoo this is 

 perhaps marked less distinctly than in the others, 

 but he comes from a better stock, and who can 

 deny that he is terribly deteriorated, especially in 

 his physical strength and length of life, when com- 

 pared with other Circassian races ? It may be said, 

 in objection to this theory, that if the blackness is 

 caused by climate and surroundings, this ought to 

 disappear when the Negro is placed in a different 

 position, as he is in the West Indies and America. 

 It must be remembered, however, that two in- 

 fluences militate against his restoration to the 

 original type. Firstly, he is the descendant of a 

 nation of criminals; for most of the negroes who 

 were sold to the slavers were negro criminals, and 

 therefore, according to the theory of natural 

 selection, ought to be, as he is, the most deeply 

 degraded variety of his race. And secondly, that 

 after all, his external circumstances were not much 

 changed by his transfer, for he was generally em- 

 ployed in districts which could not safely be 

 cultivated by whites, and the delta of the Missis- 

 sippi, the lowlands of the West India Islands, and 

 the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, are 

 very little more salubrious than his native Guinea. 

 Here I must conclude my essay, which I intended 

 to be both brief and comprehensive, but which has 

 ended by being long and confined to one or two 

 topics. Perhaps I may finish the subject on a 

 future occasion, by giving some interesting facts 

 which I have gathered from various sources, in 

 conjunction with two or three examples of the 

 identity of the customs and traditions of nations 

 far removed from each other, which have come 

 under my notice. F. A. A. 



