CAUCASIAN VARIETY. 293 



latter to have been in Egypt, as they have been everywhere, 

 slaves * to the race of nobler formation ? To give the few 

 Negroes the glory of all the discoveries and achievements 

 of this first civilized race, and overlook the more numerous, 

 individuals of different character, would be in opposition to 

 the invariable tenour of our experience respecting human 

 nature. 



Tn the course of his inquiries into the natural history of 

 man, this subject attracted the attention of Blumenbach, 

 who has been fortunate enough to procure the opportunity 

 of examining several mummies. He gave an account of 

 some of these in the Philosophical Transactions for 1794. 

 Having afterwards met with another very perfect specimen, 

 he published a more enlarged and detailed essay on the 

 whole subject in his Contributions to Natural History, part ii. 

 Goett. 12mo. 1811. 



He expresses his surprise that professed and judicious 

 antiquaries, such as Winkelmann and D'Hankerville, 

 should have ascribed one common character of national phy- 

 siognomy to the ancient Egyptian works of art, and should 

 have dispatched it, shortly and decisively, in two lines. 



" I think," he continues, "that we cannot fail to recog- 

 nize at least three principal differences, which, indeed, like 

 all varieties of formation in our species, run together by 

 numerous gradations, yet are marked, in their strongest 

 forms, by very distinct characters. They are the Ethiopian, 

 the Indian, and one resembling the Berbers, or original in- 

 habitants of the Barbary states. 



" The first is marked by prominent jaws, thick lips, a 

 broad flattened nose, and projecting eyes. Such, according 

 to Ledyard, Volney, Larrey, and other competent au- 

 thorities, are the characters of the modern Copts f; such 



* Slavery is coeval with our earliest records. See Genesis; 25, ix. 26- 

 xii. 5. 



+ Tlie Copts, who are regarded as the descendants of the ancient Egyptians, 

 have "a yellowish dusky complexion, which is neither Grecian nor Arabian ; 

 they have all a puflFed visage, swoln eyes, flat noses, and thick lips ; in short, 

 the exact countenance of a Mulatto." Volney, Travels in Syria and Egypt, 



I do not, however, find the Negro character expressed in (he delineation 



