360 VARIETIES OF FIGURE. 



borated by Mr. White *, both from dissection and observa- 

 tion of living Negroes. He mentions an instance wliere 

 the part in question was found, on dissection, to be twelve 

 inches long. In the living and dead Negroes whom I have 

 seen, there has been no deviation in size from the European 

 formation ; but I have never injected the part. 



Mr. White observes that many Negroes have no frsenum 

 prseputii; and that in others it is small and imperfect f- 



It has been supposed that the Hottentot women have 

 something peculiar in this part of their organization ; that 

 they are distinguished from all other daughters of Eve, by 

 being furnished with a natural fig-leaf of skin, produced 

 from the lower and front part of the abdomen, and covering 

 the sinus pudoris. It has been called a natural apron 

 (tablier, Fr.; ventrale cutaneum ; schurze, Germ.) Al- 

 though the native country of these females has been so 

 much visited by Europeans from all quarters, for a long 

 series of years, and the structure, according to ordinary 

 descriptions, must be very recognizable, there is a singular 

 discordance among travellers concerning this interesting 

 point in natural history. Some affirm, others altogether 

 deny its existence ; and of the former, hardly any two agree 

 in the precise nature of the peculiarity ; some referring it 

 to the labia, some to the nymphse, others to a peculiar or- 

 ganization ; some deeming it natural, others artificial. 



This discordance is accounted for, in great measure, by 

 two circumstances. First, that the peculiar organization is 

 not visible in the ordinary attitude of the body, being con- 

 cealed between the thighs X ; and, secondly, that it is con- 

 fined to a particular tribe. It does not exist in the Negroes 

 where the female organs of generation differ from the Euro- 



* On the Regular Gradation, p. 61. 



+ Ibid. p. 62. Tyson states that the chimpanse h.ad no fia>nuin ; Anat. of 

 a Pigmie, p. 45. The exact structure of this part is not mentioned by 

 Camper. 



X The Hottentot Venus displayed her charms to the French savans at the 

 Jardin du Roi, where " she had the complaisance to undress herself, that she 



