iv COLOUR OF INHABITANTS OF THE NILE VALLEY 89 



subject I agree entirely with R Hartmann, who says, in his 

 book on The Races of Africa (Internat. Bibliothek, 1879, p. 

 9) : " Our travellers make too much of the contrast between 

 the light-coloured Egyptians and the dark Nubians. It 

 always seemed to me as if these gentlemen slept away the 

 time of the journey between Kene and Syene (Assouan). In 

 this district one sees transitions enough between the two 

 types of people. This is not merely a result of the immigra- 

 tion and settling of Nubian families in Said (Upper Egypt), 

 but the inhabitant of Said as he gradually approaches the tropic 

 becomes darker, darkened by the sun, but also in consequence 

 of marriages with Berbers. So also the Nubian settlers in 

 the Nile valley possibly become gradually lighter under the 

 mild sun of Middle Egypt, partly also of course in conse- 

 quence of marriages with people originally lighter. But that 

 in such processes a certain adaptation to the physical and 

 climatic conditions of the district takes place, seems to me a 

 fact in natural history which cannot be denied." 



That the black Berbers under the slightly greater mild- 

 ness of the Egyptian sun become lighter I should consider 

 not very probable. But I have traced step by step the 

 quite gradual increase in darkness in one and the same race, 

 in the Nile valley up to Dongola, as clearly as it can be 

 traced from Germany to Calabria. 



Such observations on dark peoples, and on the influ- 

 ence of the sun on colour, bring the significance of the 

 peculiarity of our Germanic race prominently into the fore- 

 ground. There is no race among all the peoples of the earth 

 which is nearly as peculiar in the absence of dark colour in 

 the body-surface, and this to me is evidence that we Germanic 

 people had our original home in a very moderate climate, 

 indeed in quite northern regions. 1 



1 It is true that the greater action of light in the north has favoured the 

 development of pigment in plants and in many animals, but this does not apply 



