B32 NATURAL HISTORY OP 



the ears, especially of the Malabars, and the upper 

 Egyptians, stand somewhat higher, and that the legs 

 are proportionally longer than is the case with either 

 of the types, there are no very distinct characteristics 

 immediately observable, though the mouth, lips, and 

 nose are full, the hands, fingers, and toes, broader 

 and flatter, resembling the Negro form. The African 

 Ethiop has the hair pendant in heavy close ringlets, 

 and the black eyes are still larger, and more soft than 

 the Indian. Equal intermixture constitutes the usual 

 Mulatto condition; but, in the east, a much greater 

 infusion of Caucasian blood does not very evidently 

 clear the skin. Some of the lank haired nations of 

 India, as such bearing signs of more than semi-white 

 descent, are, nevertheless, among the swarthiest of the 

 whole. It has even affected old Portuguese colonists, 

 aud the ancient Jewish inhabitants of India ; neither, 

 it must be confessed, having the least claim to purity 

 of origin, but being a mixed progeny with low caste 

 natives, themselves, as we have before stated, descen- 

 dants of aboriginal Paharias, Bheels, Nagas, and with 

 only a small admixture of nobler blood. Nevertheless, 

 among these slave and outcast tribes, the chiefs have 

 high aristocratic features, which are not unfrequent 

 among their subjects. Whether the mucous mem- 

 brane of the very dark tribes of Ethiopians, with lank 

 hair, assumes the same appearance as that of Negroes, 

 is not, so far as we have been able to learn, remarked, 

 though, if this condition of melanism should not exist 

 in them, it would produce a very valid argument in 



