WHITE OK ARABIAN RACE. • 



Europeans 



■'•'Europeans and European colonists are comparatively uniform in their complexion and personal appear- 

 ance, and they can hardly conceal their origin by dress, even amid the population of Northern Africa, and 

 North-western Asia. The inhabitants of the two last named countries present among themselves more 

 diversity, although at the same time there is randy any difficulty in recognising the physical race. 



''The White race then, as it exists in northern climati may be characterised by its superiority in light- 

 ness of complexion, in thinness of lip, in prominence of e, and in length and copiousness of beard. No 

 one of these tests is of itself sufficient to distinguish the race, for Abyssinians, in some instances, rival it 

 in prominence of nose ; Teliugans, or even Ethiopians, in thinness of lip ; many Papuans have as copious 

 a beard; and I have myself seen the florid complexion among Mongolians of high northern latitudes. So 

 far, however, as my observation has extended, flaxen hair, red hair, anil blue eyes, ( Albinoes being excepted,) 

 are found only in the White race. 



" The hottest portion of the globe appears to he about seventeen degrees in width, counting from latitude 

 27° north , and extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ganges. One third, perhaps, <>f this immense tract 

 is inhabited by the White race, although often under a physical aspect that would nut readily be acknow- 

 ledged by Europeans. The complexion, always dark, is in frequent instances sufficiently so to conceal a 

 flush; indeed the Malay-brown complexion seems rather to predominate; and I have seen Arabs of a 

 deeper hue who vet were apparently of unmixed descent; moreover a considerable proportion of the 

 inhabitants of Southern Arabia are nearly or quite beardless. In short the White race is here protean or 

 polymorphous, and exhibits a diversity in feature and complexion that I have not found in the other races. 

 The prominence of profile is, however, for the most part permanent; and I further remarked that thfe 

 various series of expressions of countenance, which pertain respectively to the other races, appeared to be 

 absent. It should be observed, however, that actual mixtures of race have been more frequent and more 

 complicated in the southern Arab countries, and have been taking place there for a longe 1 period, than in 

 the other parts of the glob^ 



(20) 3* 



