THE HUMAN SPECIES. 225 



the calves paced high up; the feet broad, heavy, squarish, 

 with the soles flat; the os calcis less prominent ; the toes short, 

 more equal in length: and all the nails strong, short, and 

 broad. The skin is soft, silky to the touch ; in the new-born 

 infant, dull cherry-red, gradually darkening to the permanent 

 depth of shade ; beneath the epidermis the mucous membrane, 

 loaded with a coloring matter in the bile, causes the melanic 

 appearance of the skin, which varies, however, from deep sal- 

 low to intense sepia black ; darkest in health ; and that color 

 always distinctly affects the external glands. It is likewise 

 the source of an overpowering offensive odor, spreading 

 through the atmosphere, when many are congregated in the 

 hot sun. The silky texture of the epidermis is more liable to 

 erosion from pressure than that of white men. It is a charac- 

 ter as organic, or more so, than the arched dome of the skull, 

 and the perpendicularity of the vertebral column, which are 

 quoted as the sole cause, why burthens are best borne by 

 Negroes on the head instead of the back ; for their general 

 structure is athletic, the gait erect, free, and in young persons 

 not ungraceful. 



It appears that some tribes in Dongola and Sennaar have 

 one lumbar vertebra more than the Caucasian, and the stomach 

 corrugated.^ In general, the female pelvis is wider, the aper- 

 ture round, and both sexes have the hips remarkably well pro- 

 portioned. The bones of the typical nations are heavy, well 

 knit, or with the apophyses fitted to receive broad insertions 

 of the muscles; and the dome of the skull is particularly solid, 

 but the ribs slender and flexible. Hence, Negroes, of all 

 human beings, are distinguished for fighting, by occasionally 

 butting with their heads foremost, like rams, at each other, the 

 collision of their skulls giving a report that may be heard to 



* " Observations sur les bjttuillons Negres du Cordofan au service de 

 Mehemet Ali en Egypte et qui servirent en Candie." By a German sur- 

 geon. The sane remarks are likewise offered, we believe, by Dr. Mad- 

 den, Travels, &c. 



