MONGOLE STOCK. 



277 



cheek-bones projecting ; the eyes long, narrow, and oblique ; the nose 

 is depressed ; the mouth large ; the beard (of the male) scanty ; the com- 

 plexion dusky brown. The Samoiedes are short in stature, but broad set ; 

 and the lower limbs, though strong, seem disproportionately abbreviated. 



212 



Among the tribes of the Mongole section of mankind, the Esquimaux 

 have been already mentioned. Although inhabiting the northern parts of 

 America, from Behring's Straits to the extremity of Greenland, a tract 

 of country remote from the abodes of the nomades of central Asia, the 

 characters of the race, of which they form a branch, are sufficiently pal- 

 pable : high cheek-bones, broad foreheads, flat faces, small narrow eyes, 

 with the corners elongated, and closed so as scarcely to shew the white, 

 wide mouths, flattened noses, dusky yellow, or brown complexion, 

 and straight black hair, are observed, throughout them all. The men 

 are of moderate stature, or low, but broad- set, and the hands and feet 

 are small. When, however, it is said, that the Esquimaux, the Ostiaks, or 

 the Samoiedes, are of Mongole blood, it is not to be inferred that they have 

 sprung immediately from the Mongoles, or any one of the central Asiatic 

 tribes, as they now exist ; but that they, with the central Asiatic nomades, 



