THE HUMAN SPECIES. 243 



and ill-shaped ; the feet are indifferently formed ; and in 

 their propensities much of the Negro origin continues to be 

 traced. The Spaniards carry their distinctions to a seventh 

 generation. 



As the early history of the real Ethiopic nations is better 

 known by means of the connection and hybridal descent they 

 drew from the Caucasian races, we shall enter into more detail 

 respecting their primaeval filiations and migratory movements, 

 when treating of the bearded tribes which first invaded India, 

 and pursued, subdued, and absorbed the Negro population in 

 south-eastern and south-western Asia, and northern Africa; 

 an inquiry that can be followed out by certain geographical 

 necessities, and by a right appreciation of many ancient mythic 

 tales, notwithstanding that historical data were few and 

 scanty.* 1 



THE MALAY SUB-TYPICAL STEM. 



Pursuing our course of investigation onwards towards the 

 east, we find from a commencement somewhere on the gorges 

 of the Brahmaputra, where that mighty stream turns towards 

 the Ganges, an intermediate form of Man ; one which, in a 

 most remote period, was perhaps seated further to the north, 

 about the sources of the great rivers which rise to the eastward 



* Our personal observations on the Negro races, it is proper to mention, 

 commenced in 1797, on the coast of Africa. They were continued, on 

 both portions of the American continent, and in the West Indies, to 

 1807 ; during which period the slave trade remained inactivity, and new 

 Negroes, as they were termed, coming from different nations, could be ex- 

 amined, and their characteristics compared at most of the tropical seaports. 

 The distinctive characters then possessed by them are now confused or 

 obliterated by commixture of the different races, by education, and other 

 changes of circumstances in the western hemisphere, and are no longer 

 accessible on the coast of Africa. Hence, several remarks above made 

 cannot now be entirely verified in any quarter. From what is here stated, 

 it follows that the observations, more or less carefully made, extended 

 over hundreds, belonging to very different tribes of western and central 

 Africa, exclusive of North and South American, and West Indian colonial- 

 born Negroes. 



