50 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. ] 



As in many of these instances there exists such a striking 

 and unexpected diversity of colour, which is not to be accounted 

 for by any great difference either of diet or descent, there are 

 no means of explaining the contradictions, excepting by the 

 different modes of life, and the modes of protection against the 

 influence of climate. 



This is of special importance in countries where great heat 

 is combined with sudden alterations of temperature, or of 

 dampness and dryness. Want of protection against the influ- 

 ence of climate in such cases appears greatly to favour the 

 darkening of the skin. Continued confinement to the house, 

 as is well known, blanches the skin. This also takes place in 

 healthy persons in winter, whilst the warm sun in the spring, 

 combined with out-of-door exercise, darkens the complexion. 

 Numerous instances, both in Europe and in other parts, show 

 that fishermen and navigators exposed to all changes of the 

 weather, are always of darker complexion than the rest of the 

 population. If Belcher 1 observed the contrary in the Canary 

 Islands and among the Malays in the Bajows, and that the 

 Sandwich Islanders and the Tahitians had been of a lighter 

 colour before the missionaries forbade them to fish (?) and to 

 bathe, he stands alone in the erroneous assumption, just as 

 D'Orbigny and Troyer, 2 who assert what has not been confirmed 

 by any voyager, that among nations of brown or dark brown 

 skin, the exposed face is of a lighter colour than the protected 

 parts, and that the higher classes in the Sandwich Islands have 

 a darker complexion than the lower classes. There are, no 

 doubt, peoples among whom the males differ in colour from 

 the females, without our being able to trace a difference in 

 descent or in mode of protection. Among the natives on the 

 Pilcomayo, the females are said to be as white as the Spanish 

 women; 3 among the Coroados and Puris, the males have a 

 much darker colour, while the females are yellow and capable 

 of blushing. 4 But though such instances are at present in- 



1 "Narr. of the Voy. of H.M.S. Samarang," ii, p. 94, 1848. 



2 " Bullet, de la Soc. Ethnol.," 22 mai, 1846. 



3 Erbaul, " Geschichten der Chiquitos," Wien, p. 447, 1729. 



4 Burmeister, " R. nach Brasilien," pp. 246-260, 1853. 



