224 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



as rarely beneath five feet six; the facial angle varying from 

 65 to 70 decrees; the head being small, laterally compressed; 

 the dome of the skull arched and dense ; the forehead narrow, 

 depressed, and the posterior part more developed ; the nose 

 broad and crushed, with the nostrils round; the lower jaw pro- 

 truding, angular, but more vertical in nonage; the mouth wide, 

 with very thick lips, black to the commissure, which is red; the 

 teeth large, solid, and the incisors placed rather obliquely for- 

 ward. The ears, which are roundish, rather small, standing 

 somewhat high and detached, are said, like the scalp, to be 

 occasionally movable; 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 quin- 

 cunx, and is, in all parts, of a crisp woolly texture, except- 

 ing the eyebrows and eyelashes. In men it is scanty on 

 the upper lip, generally confined to the point of the chin, with- 

 out 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 sometimes has a few tufts, but the arms and legs are 

 without any. The throat and neck are muscular, and, with 

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

 thighs, very symmetrically moulded ;* but, compared with the 

 Caucasian, the humerus is a trifle shorter, and the forearm 

 longer, thereby approximating the form of Simiadae. The 

 wrists and ankles are robust ; the hands coarse, with phalanges 

 rather short, particularly the thumb; and the palms are yellow- 

 ish. The legs have the shin-bones slightly bent forwards, and 



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

 from a Negro in London, bore ample testimony 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 

 w r as 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 development of female maturity. 



