PATHOLOGICAL VARIETIES. 57 



We find nowhere that the Greeks, the inhabitants of the 

 ancient continent generally, the Arabs, or even the ancient 

 Egyptians themselves, have ever been accustomed to this posi- 

 tion, which necessarily implies some anatomical modification, 

 whether it be in the separation of the pelvis, the direction of 

 the neck of the thigh-bone, or the torsion of the bones, etc.* 

 This position seems, on the contrary, to have been always the 

 peculiarity of the Melanesian races ; it is the ordinary mode of 

 standing among the inhabitants in the upper course of the 

 Nile, and the Negroes of Africa and the Oceanic Islands. 

 They place themselves thus in order to look at anything, to 

 chat together, or to deliberate. The magnificent drawings 

 which illustrate the account of the travels of the English Em- 

 bassy to the Emperor of Abyssinia, f represent this monarch 

 as reviewing an entire army of infantry drawn up in order of 

 battle, and all squatting in this manner. 



The ancient Egyptians generally kept themselves either on 

 their knees or seated on the ground, the legs brought together, 

 and the knees touching in front of the chest, as thousands of 

 statues, figures, and pictures show us. But their artists have 

 just revealed to us that the people of Central Africa have 

 always been as they are at the present day. The great paint- 

 ing of Beit-Oually, in Nubia, J represents Rameses the Great 

 as charging a troop of Negroes from Soudan; on one side, 

 farther off, we see a Negro near a saucepan, preparing, doubt- 

 less, some food ; he is squatting in the manner of which we 

 have just spoken. In this place, as is often the case, the 

 Egyptian artist has been clever in seizing a profile by its most 

 significant characteristic. 



Gericault wished at one time to make a drawing of an epi- 

 sode in the " Shipwreck of the Medusa," Coreard making 



* See Sommering, 1785, p. 42. 



f Sketches of Central Africa. 



J There is a copy of it at the British Museum. 



We only know of one painting in which Egyptians themselves are re- 

 presented in a like position ; it is in the British Museum, and is on a tomb. 

 It is a group of persons squatted behind a flock of geese. It is right to re- 

 mark, however, that the artist may have been rather puzzled about its com- 

 position, more complicated than usual, and that the inartistic profiles of his 

 figures, which almost cover one another, greatly diminish the value of the 

 picture with reference to our subject. 



