318 BLUSHING. Chap. XIII. 



habit the hot, equable, and damp parts of South America, 

 the skin apparently does not answer to mental excite- 

 ment so readily as with the natives of the northern and 

 southern parts of the continent, who have long been 

 exposed to great vicissitudes of climate; for Humboldt 

 quotes without a protest the sneer of the Spaniard, 

 " How can those be trusted, who know not how to 

 blush?" 14 Yon Spix and Martius, in speaking of the 

 aborigines of Brazil, assert that they cannot properly be 

 said to blush; " it was only after long intercourse with 

 the whites, and after receiving some education, that we 

 perceived in the Indians a change of colour expressive 

 of the emotions of their minds." 15 It is, however, in- 

 credible that the power of blushing could have thus 

 originated; but the habit of self -attention, consequent 

 on their education and new course of life, would have 

 much increased any innate tendency to blush. 



Several trustworthy observers have assured me that 

 they have seen on the faces of negroes an appearance 

 resembling a blush, under circumstances which would 

 have excited one in us, though their skins were of an 

 ebony-black tint. Some describe it as blushing brown, 

 but most say that the blackness becomes more intense. 

 An increased supply of blood in the skin seems in some 

 manner to increase its blackness; thus certain exan- 

 thematous diseases cause the affected places in the negro 

 to appear blacker, instead of, as with us, redder. 16 The 

 skin, perhaps, from being rendered more tense by the 



14 Humboldt, ' Personal Narrative,' Eng. translat. vol. 

 iii.' p. 229. 



15 Quoted by Prichard, Phys. Hist, of Mankind, 4th edit. 

 1851, vol. i. p. 271. 



16 See, on this head, Burg-ess, ibid. p. 32. Also Waitz, 

 ' Introduction to Anthropology,' Eng. edit. vol. i. p. 135. 

 Moreau gives a detailed account (' Lavater,' 1820, torn. iv. 

 p. 302) of the blushing of a Madagascar negress-slave when 

 forced by her brutal master to exhibit her naked bosom. 



