44 



COMPLEXION. 



Com- 

 plexion. 



Fair com- 

 plexions 

 found in 

 hot cli- 

 mates. 



South 

 Americans 



-Africans. 



rica, as there is between the temperature of southern 

 and northern Europe ; and yet this author expressly 

 assures us, " that the Indians of the torrid zone, who 

 inhabit the most elevated plains of the Cordillera of the 

 Andes, and those who, under the 45" of south latitude, 

 'live' by fishing among the islands of the Archipelago of 

 'Chcnos, have as coppery a complexion as those who, 

 under a burning climate, cultivate bananas in the 

 narrowest and deepest vallies of the equinoctial re- 

 gion." (P tlilical Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, 

 i. 1 4, &c.) He adds, indeed, that the Indians of the 

 mountains are clothed ; but he never could observe, 

 that those parts which were covered were less dark 

 than those which were exposed to the air. The inha- 

 bitants, also, of Terra del Fuego, one of the coldest 

 climates in the world, have dark complexions and hair. 



2. Fair-complexioned races are found in hot climates. 

 'Ulloa informs us, that the heat of Guayaquil is greater 

 than at Carthagena ; and by experiment he ascertained 

 the heat of the latter place to be greater than the heat 

 of the hottest day at Paris ; and yet in Guayaquil, 

 " notwithstanding the heat of the climate, its natives are 

 not tawny :" indeed, they are " so fresh coloured, and 

 so finely featured, as justly to be styled the handsomest, 

 both in the province of Quito, and even in all Peru." 

 ( Ulloa, i. 1 7 1 .) " In the forests of Guiana, especially 

 near the sources of the Orinoco, are several tribes of a 

 whitish complexion, the Guiacas, the Guagaribs, and 

 Arigues, of whom several robust individuals, exhibit- 

 ing no symptom of the asthenical malady which cha- 

 racterises Albinos, have the appearance of true Masti- 

 goes. Yet these tribes have never mingled with Eu- 

 ropeans, and are surrounded with other, tribes of a dark 

 brown hue." * The inhabitants of Boroa, a tribe in the 

 heart of Araucania, are white, and in their features and 

 complexion very like Europeans. 



Even in Africa, darkness of complexion does not in- 

 crease with the heat of the climate in all instances : the 

 existence of comparatively fair races in this quarter of 

 the globe is noticed by Ebn Hankal, an Arabian tra- 

 veller of the tenth century, and has been confirmed by 

 subsequent travellers. The following notices are from 

 this author : In Bajeh, immediately bordering on the 

 land of Abyssinia, is a race of people who have the 

 same complexion as the Arabians. In Zingbar (Ethio- 

 pia) there is a race of white people, who bring from 

 other places articles of food and clothing. But the 

 most striking fact mentioned by this Arabian traveller, 

 relates to a district which he calls Zouialah : This, he 

 says, abounds in black slaves, but the inhabitants are 

 of a brown complexion. In ■the eastern parts they are 

 darker, and have light-coloured eyes ; while some more 

 remote have fair complexions, with blue eyes and red- 

 dish hair. One race of them has black eyes and black 

 hair : These are said to be derived from the Arabs of 

 the tribe of Ghirzaz. Tlie Oriental Geography of Ebn 

 Hankal. translated by Sir William Ouseley, 1800, 

 pp. 13, 14, 27. 



Battal, an English traveller, observed, in south lat. 

 12°, a numerous camp of Negroes, of the Giagas or 

 Gallas tribe, whom he describes as of a complexion much 

 fairer than that of most other Negroes ; and the com- 

 plexion of the Foulahs, who live in 9° north latitude, 



Com- 

 plexion. 



is so fair, that some writers imagine them to be the 

 Leiicsethiopes of Ptolemy and Pliny. On the south- 

 west, south, and south-east, Darfur, according to T""""* 

 Browne, is bounded by two distinct races ; one of 

 which have woolly hair, and exhibit the true features 

 of the Guinea Negro, while the other are of a reddish 

 colour. The same author describes the people who 

 inhabit the island near Assuan as black, but the people 

 of the town are red coloured, like Nubians. The 

 mountaineers of Harraza, and the inhabitants of Shulla, 

 to the south of Darfur, are also red, (Browne's Travels, 

 p. 16'5.) In some of these instances, the difference of* 

 complexion may have risen from the intermixture of 

 races ; but this observation will certainly not apply to 

 all the cases. It ma)' also be said, that there are two 

 distinct races near Darfur, the Moors or Arabians, and 

 Negroes, and that the fair complexion is entirely con- 

 fined to the former. This observation will be consi- 

 dered, when we come to investigate the effects of a 

 change of climate on the human complexion, when it 

 will probably appear, that the difficulty in the way of 

 the hypothesis we are combating is equally great, whe- 

 ther such marked differences of complexion are found 

 among the aborigines, or among two distinct races, one 

 of whom has been subjected for centuries to the ope- 

 ration of the same climate, which is said to have pro- 

 duced the darker complexion of the other. 



3. The same complexion is found over immense tracts -p^ 

 of country, comprehending all possible varieties of cli- complex- 

 mate. The most striking and decisive instance of this, ion found 

 is on the continent of America ; all the inhabitants of i Q varieties 

 which, with the exception of the Esquimaux, exhibit oi clim3te » 

 the copper-coloured skin, and the long and strait black 

 hair. " Over a million and a half of square leagues,** 

 (observes Humboldt,) " from the Terra del Fuego 

 Islands to the river St Lawrence and Beering's Straits, 

 we are struck at the first glance with the general re- 

 semblance in the features of the inhabitants." {Hum- 

 boldt, i. 144.) The same remark is made by Forster, 

 who accompanied Captain Cook in one of his voyages 

 round the world. (Goltingen Magazin, 1783, p. 929-) 

 There are, no doubt, shades of difference in the com- 

 plexions, and even some exceptions to the general re- 

 mark, of a more decisive character : but these excep- 

 tions rather make against, than in favour of the opinion, 

 that the colour of the Americans is the effect of climate. 

 Several of them have been already noticed. But the 

 grand fact is sufficiently conclusive, that under all the 

 diversity of climates which the continent of America con- 

 tains, there is either no radical difference of complexion, 

 or that difference is the reverse of what climate ought 

 to produce. 



New Holland and New Zealand are instances of a si- 

 milar nature, though on a less extensive scale, over the 

 whole of the former island ; even in the very cold cli- 

 mate of the southern parts, the complexion of its inha- Zealan- 

 bitants is of a deep black, and their hair is curled bke ders > 

 that of negroes. New Zealand stretches from 34° to 

 47 south latitude, but its inhabitants do not vary in 

 their colour ; they are equally tawny* under the extreme 

 cold of 47 : south, as under the milder climate of the 

 northern parts of the island. The complexion of the 

 inhabitants of the southern division of these islands, and 



New Hol- 

 landers 

 and New 



* Humboldt, i. 144. This author mentions other facts, which prove, that colour, at least that of the Americans, does not depend 

 on climate. The people of the Rio Negro are swarthier than those of the Lower Orinoco, and yet the banks of the first of these 

 rivers enjoy a much cooler climate than the more northern regions. The Mexicans are more swarthy than the Indians of Quito and 

 New Grun.tda, though the climate is exactly similar. «' Under the 54° 10' of north latitude, at Cloak Bay, in the midst of copper 

 coloured Indians, with small long eyes, there is a tribe with large eyes, European features, and a skia less dark than that of onr pea 

 gantry," 



