86 HISTORY OF 



seldom found to do ; so that several are seen with 

 white beards and black hair at the same time. 

 Their eyes are generally of a deep hazel ; their 

 noses flat and short ; their lips thick and tumid ; 

 and their teeth of an ivory whiteness. This 

 their only beauty, however, is set off by the co- 

 lour of their skin, the contrast between the 

 black and white being the more observable. It 

 is false to say that their features are deformed by 

 art ; since, in the Negro children born in Euro* 

 pean countries, the same deformities are seen to 

 prevail; the same flatness in the nose, and the 

 same prominence in the lips. They are, in ge*- 

 neral, said to be well shaped ; but of such as I 

 have seen, I never found one that might be just- 

 ly called so ; their legs being mostly ill formed, 

 and commonly bending outward on the shin- 

 bone. But it is not only in those parts of their 

 bodies that are obvious that they are dispropor- 

 tioned ; those parts which among us are usually 

 concealed by dress, with them are large and lan- 

 guid.* The women's breasts, after bearing one 

 child, hang down below the navel ; and it is cus- 

 tomary with them to suckle the child at their 

 backs, by throwing the breast over the shoulder. 

 As their persons are thus naturally deformed, at 

 least to our imaginations, their minds are equal- 

 ly incapable of strong exertions. The climate 



* Linnams, in prima linea sua, focminas Africanas tlepingit sicut aliquicl 

 deforme in partc gcnitali gestantes, quod signum pudoris nuncupat. Atta- 

 men nihil diflfierunt a nostratibus in hac parte nisi quod labia pudendae sint 

 aliquantulum tumidioia. In liomintbus etiam penis cst longior et multo 

 laxior. 



