244 VARIETIES OF COLOUR 



autem exinde occiEcarentur, ac nos iibi soils fulgore aiit 

 nivis candore subito perstringiinur *.'' 



Mr. Jefferson had seen seven examples of this pecu- 

 liarity in the Negro race. Three of them were sisters ; 

 having two other full sisters who were black. Two of 

 them bore black children to black men. They were un- 

 commonly shrewd, quick in their apprehension and reply. 

 Their eyes were in a perpetual tremulous vibration, very 

 weak, and much affected by the sun ; but they could see 

 better than other persons in the night. The fourth is a 

 woman, whose parents came from Guinea, and had three 

 other children of their own colour. She is freckled, and 

 has such weak eyes that she is obliged to wear a shade in 

 the summer ; but she sees better in the night. She bore 

 an Albino child to a black man. Another white Negress 

 had a black daughter by a black man. The last instance 

 was a male, tall, with tremulous weak eyes f. 



Wafer has given a good description of those which are 

 me^ with in the isthmus of Darien. Their skin is milk- 

 white, much like the colour of a white horse, and covered 

 with a short down. " They see not very well in the sun, 

 poring in the clearest day, their eyes being but weak ; and 

 running with water if the sun shines towards them : so that 

 in the day-time they care not to go abroad, unless it be a 

 cloudy dark day. But notwithstanding their being thus 

 sluggish and dull in the day-time, yet when moonshiny 

 nights come, they are all life and activity, running abroad 

 and into the woods, skipping about like wild bucks; and 

 running as fast by moonlight, even in the gloom and shade 

 of the woods, as the other Indians by day, being as nimble 

 as they, though not so strong and lusty/' Hence they are 

 called moon-eyed J. 



The peculiarity always exists from birth : it never changes 

 afterwards, and it is propagated by generation. 



* Blumenbach in lib. cit, 



+ Notes on Virginia,}^. 112 — 120. 



X New Voyage and Description of the TstJnnus of America, p. 134 et seq. 



