DERIVED FROM ANATOMY, HISTORY, AND THE MONUMENTS. 119 
that he might be deceived by the mere position in which the head was placed for inspec- 
tion; for the more the face is drawn downward, the higher will be the relative position 
of the ear, until it may be brought on a level either with the nostrils or the eye, at option. 
I am the more disposed to offer this suggestion because we are told that in the mummies 
in question “the facial angle was not different from that of European heads.” I need 
hardly remark, however, that the higher the external meatus of the ear, the less will be 
the facial angle; so that M. De Malle’s two observations manifestly contradict each 
other. 
In the annexed plates the reader will find seventy-four accurate delineations of mum- 
mied heads, among which he will search in vain for the alleged peculiarity of the Egyp- 
tian ear. It is equally absent in the Pelasgic, Egyptian, Semitic, and Negroid forms: 
and yet the Egyptians, on their monuments, bestowed it alike on the people of all nations, 
of all epochs, and of every condition in life. See Plate XIV. 
Complezion.—On this point our evidence is, perhaps, less conclusive than on most 
others connected with Egyptian ethnography. Yet, meagre as it may seem, we cannot 
pass it by without a few remarks. 
Herodotus, in the passage already cited, (p. 115,) speaks of the colour of the Egyptians 
as if it were black; yet this is evidently a relative, and not an absolute term. ‘This re- 
mark applies, also, to the hackneyed fable of the two black doves, who are said, in my- 
thological language, to have flown from Egypt, and established (at least one of them) the 
oracle of Delphi. Here, again, Herodotus supposes that because the doves were black, 
they must have represented Egyptian personages. But the Greeks, observes Maurice, 
called every thing black that related to Egypt, not excepting the river, the soil, and even 
the country itself; whence the name Epuoyvuus—the black country of Hermes. 
Again, in reference to the statement of Herodotus, on which I have already, perhaps, 
too largely commented, it may be well to give the evidence of another eye-witness, that 
of Ptolemy the geographer, who is believed to have been born in Egypt. He wrote in 
the second century of our era, and his observations must consequently have been made 
something more than five hundred years later than those of Herodotus, His words are as 
follow :—‘‘In corresponding situations on our side of the equator, that is to say, under 
the tropic of Cancer, men have not the colour of Ethiopians, nor are there elephants and 
rhinoceroses. Buta little south of this, the northern tropic, the people are moderately 
dark, (npsua tryxaveds weAaves,) as those, for example, who inhabit the thirty Scheni, 
(as far as Wady Halfa, in Nubia,) above Syene. But in the country around Meroé they 
are already sufficiently black, and there we first meet with pure Negroes.”’* 
Here is ample evidence to prove that the natural geographical position of the Negroes 
was the same seventeen centuries since as it is now; and for ages antecedent to Herodo- 
tus, the monuments are perfectly conclusive on the same subject. I could, therefore, 
much more readily believe that the historian had never been in Egypt at all, than admit 
the literal and unqualified interpretation of his words which has been insisted on by some, 
and which would class the Egyptians with the Negro race. 
* Ptolemwi Geog. Lib. I., cap. ix., as quoted in Edinburgh Review, Vol. LX. p. 812. 
} Did any one ever read the Evrerre for the first time without some misgivings of this kind? [ ask this question 
with a profound respect for the venerable historian and traveller. 
