56 MAMMALIA— MAN. 



Besides these savages, who are scattered over the most northern parts 

 of America, we find others more numerous, and altogether different, in 

 Canada, and in the vast extent of land to the Arctic sea. These are all 

 tolerably tall, robust, vigorous, and well made; they have hair and eyes 

 black, teeth very white, a complexion tawny, their beard scanty, and over 

 the whole of their body hardly a vestige of hair ; they are hardy, indefati- 

 gable walkers, and very nimble runners. They are alike unaffected by 

 excesses of hunger, and of repletion ; they are by nature bold and fierce, 

 grave and sedate. So strongly, indeed, do they resemble the Oriental Tar- 

 tars in the color of the skin, the hair, and the eyes, in the scantiness of 

 beard, and of hair, as also in disposition and in manners, that, were they 

 not separated from each other by an immense sea, we should conclude them 

 to be descended from that nation. In point of latitude, their situation is 

 also the same; and this still farther proves how powerfully the climate 

 influences not only the color, but the figure of men. 



If, however, in the whole of North America, there were none but savages 

 to be met with, in Mexico, and in Peru, there were found nations polished, 

 subjected to laws, governed by kings, industrious, acquainted with the arts, 

 and not destitute of religion. 



In the present state of these countries, so intermixed are the inhabitants 

 o. . "lexico and New Spain, that hardly do we meet with two visages of the 

 same color. In the city of Mexico, there are white men from Europe, 

 Indians from the north, and from the south of America, and negroes from 

 Africa, &c, insomuch, that the color of the people exhibits every different 

 shade which can subsist between black and white. The. real natives of the 

 country are of a very brown olive color, well made and active ; and though 

 they have little hair, even upon their eyebrows, yet upon their head their 

 hair is long and very black. 



In surveying the different appearances which the human form assumes 

 in the different regions of the earth, the most striking circumstance is that 

 of color. This circumstance has been attributed to various causes; but 

 experience justifies us in affirming, that of this the principal cause is the 

 heat of the climate. When this heat is excessive, as at Senegal and in 

 Guinea, the inhabitants are entirely black ; when it is rather less violent, 

 as on the eastern coasts of Africa, they are of a lighter shade ; when it 

 begins to be somewhat more temperate, as in Barbary, in India, in Arabia, 

 &c, they are only brown ; and, in fine, when it is altogether temperate, as 

 in Europe, and in Asia, they are white ; and the varieties which are there 

 remarked, proceed solely from varieties in the mode of living. All the 

 Tartars, for example, are tawny, while the Europeans, who live in the 

 same latitude, are white. Of this difference the reasons seem to be, that 

 the former are always exposed to the air ; that they have no towns, no 

 fixed habitations ; that they sleep upon the earth, and in every respect live 

 coarsely and savagely. These circumstances alone, are sufficient to rende 



