SECT. I.] CLIMATE. 51 



explicable, they do not invalidate the general rule, that the 

 colour of the skin and the whole external aspect are essentially 

 influenced by habits of life, comfort or misery, and particularly 

 by the want or sufficiency of protection against heat, cold, and 

 moisture. This is confirmed among all races. 



Though we find among all the castes of the Hindoos light 

 and dark individuals of all shades, the lower castes are mostly 

 darker, the Brahmins mostly of a lighter colour, so that in 

 comparison with the rest of the population they appear white 

 even in Mahratta, the Deccan, and Calcutta. A wandering 

 tribe of Rajpoots, the Bengari, who travel through the country 

 as corn merchants, 1 are much darker and more vigorous than the 

 rest of their tribes (Lassen). The women and girls of the 

 Hassanieh Arabs in East Africa, who are very careful of their 

 complexion, are of a light bronze colour, and differ in this re- 

 spect so much from their dark-brown husbands, that one is in- 

 clined to consider them of a different tribe. 2 Many women in 

 El Obeid (Kordofan) who protect themselves from the sun, are 

 not darker than brunette European women. Among the 

 yellow-brown Mongolian race in China and Japan, the work- 

 men are brown ; high-born ladies nearly white ; and upon the 

 Luchu Islands the colour alternates from dark brown to white. 3 

 In Bony (Celebes), many women are very white. 4 The most 

 striking diversities of colour and hair are found among the 

 Fins, unless we are able to explain it by intermixture. The 

 black-haired dark Laps and Woguls are nearly allied to the 

 fair Fins, the black-haired but clear complexioned Magyars, 

 and the red-haired Ostiaks. L. v. Buch considers the protec- 

 tion against the influence of climate, wholesome food, warm 

 clothing, and good habitation, among the Fins, and the want 

 of them among the short Laps, as the chief causes of these 

 phenomena. Many peoples of the South Sea, especially of the 

 Society, Sandwich Islands, and New Zealand, offer so con- 

 siderable a difference in complexion, that one is often inclined 

 to assume a mixture of different races ; which supposition is 



1 Ritter, " Erdk./' v, p. 687. 2 Brehm, i, p. 331. 



3 Prichard, iv, 519. 



4 Olivier, " E. in Niederlandisch Indien," ii, p. 175, 1829. 



E 2 



