190 



NATURAL HISTORY OF 



teeth large, solid, and the incisors placed rather 

 liquely forward. The ears, which are roundish, rather 

 small, standing somewhat high and detached, are said, 

 like the scalp, to be occasionally moveable'; the eyes 

 always suffused with a bilious tint, and the irides very 

 dark. The hair, in infants, rises from the skin in 

 small mammillary tufts, disposed in irregular quincunx, 

 and is in all parts of a crisp woolly texture, excepting 

 the eyebrows and eyelashes. In men it is scanty on 

 the upper lip, generally confined to the point of the 

 chin, without any at the sides of the face, excepting in 

 late manhood. On the head, it forms a close hard 

 frizzle of wool; in the pure races never hanging loose, 

 nor rising into a kind of mop ; and the breast some- 

 times has a few tufts ; but the arms and legs are with- 

 out any. The throat and neck is muscular ; and, with 

 the chest, shoulders, abdomen, hips, back, upper arms, 

 and thighs, very symmetrically moulded ; * but, com- 

 pared with the Caucasian, the humerus is a trifle 

 shorter, and the forearm longer, thereby approximating 

 the form of Simiadae. The wrists and ancles are ro- 

 bust; the hands coarse, with phalanges rather short, 

 particularly the thumb ; and the palms are yellowish. 



* The late Sir Francis Chantrey's magnificent cast of a 

 Torso, taken from a Negro in London, bore ample testi- 

 mony to this fact. Our own sketches of the naked figure, 

 drawn during a residence of twelve years within the 

 tropics, gave so much additional proof, that the great 

 sculptor was tempted to copy several for his own use. 

 With regard to the other sex, the tropics alone produce the 

 combination of infantine natural grace with the full de- 

 velopment of female maturity. 



