NATURAL HISTORY. llj) 



pigeons anil veal. Nevertheless, at this period of 

 rudeness, the women were" skilful in the arts of co- 

 louring the skin, of plucking out the eye-brows, and 

 of painting artificial ones. They also adorned them- 

 selves with pearls and jewels, and their garments 

 were made of rich and valuable stuffs. From these 

 circumstance? does it not appear, that the barba- 

 rism of the Muscovites was near a close, and that 

 their sovereign had less trouble in polishing them than 

 some authors have endeavoured to insinuate? They 

 are now a people in some degree civilized and com- 

 mercial, fond of spectacles, and of other ingenious 

 novelties. 



From the regions of Europe and Asia, our attention 

 is now to be directed to a race of people differing 

 more from ourselves in external appearances than any 

 we have hitherto mentioned. 



In the seventeenth or eighteenth degree of north 

 latitude, on the African coast, we find the negroes of 

 Senegal and of Nubia, some in the neighbourhood of 

 the ocean, and others in that of the red sea. After 

 them, all the nations of Africa, from the latitude of 

 eighteen North to that of eighteen South, are black; 

 the Ethiopians, or Abyssinians, excepted. It appears, 

 then, that the portion of the globe which Nature has 

 allotted to this race of men, contains an extent of 

 ground, parallel to the equator, of about nine hundred 

 leagues in breadth, and considerably more in length, 

 especially northward of the equator. Beyond the 

 latitude of eighteen or twenty, there are no more ne- 

 groes, as will appear when we come to speak of the 

 Caffres, and of the Hottentots. 



By confounding them with their neighbours the 

 Nubians, we have been long in a error, with respect 



