VARIETIES OF COLOUR. 747 



the chest, size and form of the head, intellectual 

 and moral character of the human race, I proceed 

 to inquire how far it modifies the complexions of 

 mankind. Dr. Prichard maintains on the autho- 

 rity of Herodotus, Diodorus, the travels of Norden, 

 Volney, Sonnini, and Denon, that the original 

 colour and general configuration of the ancient 

 Egyptians were those of the negro race, with 

 dark skin, woolly hair, prominent cheek bones, 

 low and narrow forehead, thick lips, flat nose, 

 protruding eye-balls, and short stature. In sup- 

 port of this opinion, Godfrey Higgins states, that 

 the most ancient statues of India and Egypt are 

 black, with curly hair, thick lips, and flat nose, 

 that in Greece, which was originally peopled 

 from Southern Asia and Northern Africa, the 

 statues of Jupiter, Hercules, Bacchus, and other 

 gods, were of the same colour, from which he 

 inferred, that all the first inhabitants of the earth 

 were black, and gradually changed through every 

 gradation of colour, on spreading over the higher 

 latitudes. 



Yet Dr. Prichard thinks, that ''climates have 

 very inconsiderable and doubtful effect in excit- 

 ing varieties of complexion," which are owing 

 more to civilization or "cultivation, than to any 

 other known cause." (Physical History of Man, 

 pp. 155, 194, 222.) But it is only in the hottest 

 portions of the earth that man is perfectly black, 

 as among the negroes of Soudan, Bennin, Da- 



