DIFFERENCES OF STATURE. 381 



The Mongols, Calmucks, Burats, and other tribes of 

 central Asia, are shorter. The Lewchews are a very dimi- 

 nutive race, the average height of the men not exceeding 

 5 feet 2 inches at the utmost *. The Laplanders and Sa- 

 moides, in Europe ; the Ostiacs, Yakuts, Tungooses, and 

 Tschutski, in Asia ; the Greenlanders and Eskimaux of 

 America — all, indeed, who inhabit high northern latitudes, 

 are equally short, measuring from 4 to a little more than 5 

 feet t ; and they agree remarkably in other characters, al- 

 though occupying countries so distant from each other. 



It has been long ago reported, that a nation of white 

 dwarfs, called Quimos or Kimos, exists in tlie interior of 

 Madagascar ; but no direct testimony on the subject has 

 been offered to che public ; and Flacourt, who visited 

 the island in the seventeenth century, has treated the report 

 as fabulous J. Lately, this nation of dwarfs has been again 

 brought forwards ; Commerson, who accompanied Bou- 

 gainville as naturalist, and the Count De Modave, go- 

 vernor of the French settlement at Fort Dauphin, having 

 declared their belief in its existence §. The only fact ad- 

 duced in proof of this point is, that the governor purchased 

 a female slave, of light colour, about three feet and a half 

 high, with long arms reaching to her knees. Blumenbach || 

 thinks it probable that this individual must have been mal- 



* Macleod's Voyage of the Alceste^ &c. p, 1 10. 



t " Such a person as Niels Sura, at Kautokejno (in Lapland), w ho measured 

 5 feet 8 inches English, may not be again found among many hundreds of 

 them." VoN Buch. Travels, p. 354. 



^ Histoire de la grande lie de Madagascar. Paris, 1658. 



^ The statements of Commerson, who died at Madagascar, and of Mr. 

 De Modave, are introduced into the Voyage d JIadagascar et aux Indes 

 Oritntales, par. xVf. I'Abbe Rochon, Paris, 1791. A letter of Commerson tb 

 Lalande is also appended to the Voyage autoiir du Monde of Bougainville. 



1! De G.II. Var. Nat. sect. iii. § 73. 



Le Gentil, vi^ho was in Madagascar at the same time with Commerson, 

 altogether disbelieves the existence of any such dwarfish people. Voyage dans 

 les Mers de VJnde, t. 2. p. 503. And Sonnerat, who saw the individual 

 mentioned in the text, considered it merely as an individual formation ; 

 Voyage aux Indes Orientales, t. 2. p. 57. 



