222 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



how far it holds good. The late Dr. Daniell, who had 

 long lived on the west coast of Africa, told me that he did 

 not believe in any such relation. He was himself unusually 

 fair and had withstood the climate in a wonderful manner. 

 When he first arrived as a boy on the coast an old and ex- 

 perienced negro chief predicted from his appearance that 

 this would prove the case. Dr. Nicholson, of Antigua, 

 after having attended to this subject, writes to me that 

 dark-colored Europeans escape the yellow fever more than 

 those that are light colored. Mr. J. M. Harris altogether 

 denies that Europeans with dark hair withstand a hot cli- 

 mate better than other men; on the contrary, experience 

 has taught him in making a selection of men for service on 

 the coast of Africa to choose those with red hair.* As far, 

 therefore, as these slight indications go, there seems no 

 foundation for the hypothesis, that blackness has resulted 

 from the darker and darker individuals having survived 

 better during long exposure to fever-generating miasma. 

 Dr. Sharpe remarks, f that a tropical sun, which burns 



count, as a standard of comparison, how many men, in the force 

 whence the sick are drawn, have dark and light-colored hair and 

 hair of intermediate or doubtful tints; and if a similar account were 

 kept by the same medical gentlemen of all the men who suffered 

 from malarious and yellow fevers, or from dysentery, it would soon 

 be apparent, after some thousand cases had been tabulated, whether 

 there exists any relation between the color of the hair and constitu- 

 tional liability to tropical diseases. Perhaps no such relation would 

 be discovered, but the investigation is well worth making. In case 

 any positive result were obtained it might be of some practical use 

 in selecting men for any particular service. Theoretically the result 

 would be of high interest, as indicating one means by which a race 

 of men inhabiting from a remote period an unhealthy tropical cli- 

 mate, might have become dark-colored by the better preservation of 

 dark-haired or dark-complexioned individuals during a long succes- 

 sion of generations." 



*" Anthropological Review," Jan., 1866, p. 21. Dr. Sharpe also 

 says, with respect to India (" Man a Special Creation," 1873, p. 118), 

 " that it has been noticed by some medical officers that Europeans 

 with light hair and florid complexions suffer less from diseases of 

 tropical countries than persons with dark hair and sallow complex 

 ions; and, so far as I know, there appear to be good grounds for 

 this remark." On the other hand, Mr. Heddle, of Sierra Leone. 

 " who has had more clerks killed under him than any other man," 

 by the climate of the West African Coast (W. Reade, "African 

 Sketch Book," vol. ii, p. 522), holds a directly opposite view, as doe^ 

 Capt. Burton. 



t "Man a Special Creation," 1873, p. H9, 



