COMPLEXION. 



49 



Com. 

 plexion. 



complex, 

 ion. ' 



It is not meant to be denied that a burning climate 

 will not render the complexion very dark ; and that a 

 ' climate of less extreme heat will not bronze the com- 

 foetween" plexion of the fairest European ; but there are some ma- 

 native and terial points, in which the dark complexion of the Cau- 

 acquireJ casian, or naturally fair-skinned variety of mankind, 

 caused by climate, differs from the dark complexion of 

 all the other varieties of the human race. 



1. The offspring of the Caucasian variety is born fair; 

 —the offspring of the other varieties is born of the re- 

 spective complexion of their parents. Ulloa informs us, 

 that the children born in Guayaquil of Spanish parents 

 are very fair. {Ulloa, i. 171.) The same is the case 

 in the West Indies. Long, in his History of Jamaica, 

 expressly affirms, " That the children born in England 

 have not, in general, lovelier or more transparent skins, 

 than the offspring of white parents in Jamaica." But 

 it may be urged, that this is not the case with respect 

 to the other nations of the Caucasian variety, who have 

 been settled in warm climates from time immemorial; 

 and that the question ought to be decided by the Moors, 

 Arabians, &c. Their children, however, are also bom 

 fair complexioned ; as fair as the children of Europeans, 

 who live under a cold climate. Russell informs us, that 

 the inhabitants of the country round Aleppo are natu- 

 rally of a fair complexion ; and that women of condi- 

 tion, with proper care, preserve their fair complexion 

 to the last. (Russell's Aleppo, i. 99.) The children of 

 the Moors, according to Shaw, have the finest com- 

 plexions of any nation whatsoever ; and the testimony 

 of Poiret is directly to the same effect : " The Moors 

 are not naturally black, but are born fair ; and when 

 not exposed to the heat of the sun, remain fair during 

 their lives. Shaw, p. 304 ; and Poiret's Voyage en Bar- 

 bar ie, i. 31. 



Respecting the complexion of the Negro and Indian 

 children, when first born, there appears to be some dif- 

 ference of opinion ; but this difference will be found on 

 examination to be of little moment, and to have arisen 

 from some authors speaking of then complexion at the 

 very moment of their birth, while others describe it, 

 as appearing a few days afterwards. In fact, all chil- 

 dren, immediately when born, have a reddish hue ; and 

 the children of Negroes and Indians resembling the 

 children of Europeans in this respect, it has been in- 

 ferred that they were born white. We should, there- 

 fore, endeavour to ascertain the complexion of Negro 

 and Indian children, after the reddish hue is gone off, 

 and before they could possibly be affected by the heat 

 of the climate. Winterbottom informs us, that Negro 

 children are nearly as fair as Europeans at their birth, 

 and do not acquire their colour till several days have 

 elapsed." {Winterbottom, i. 189.) And Ligon, in a 

 passage in his account of Barbadoes already quoted, 

 mentions that, when first born, the palms of their hands, 

 and soles of their feet, are of a whitish colour. {Ligon, 

 p. 52.) A friend of Mr Boyle's, who kept between 300 

 and 400 Negro slaves in the West Indies, informed him, 

 that their children were of a reddish colour when born, 

 like Europeans, but in aferv days became black. (Boyle's 

 Works abridged by Sham, ii. 42.) And Andrew Pat- 

 tell (whose travels are given in Purchas) says, that the 

 children in Longo are born white, and change in two 

 days. The dark complexion first appears round the 

 nails, the nipples, and the private parts. 



Humboldt affirms, that in Peru, Quito, on the coast 

 of Caraccas, the banks of the Orinoco, and in Mexico, 

 the children of Indians are never bom white ; but Gu- 

 milla, in a passage quoted by the translator of Hum- 



VOL. Til. PART I. 



boldt, expressly asserts, that the Indian children, at Com- 

 their birth, are white, except a small spot on the waist; P' exit>H ' 

 but in a few days acquire their natural colour. It is Dit r- 

 probable, that Humboldt speaks of them, not immedi- between 

 ately on their birth, but when they had acquired this native and 

 colour. {Humboldt, i. 146.) As, therefore, there seems acquired 

 no doubt of the fact, that the children of Negroes and complex- 

 Indians, whatever may be their colour immediately on lon * 

 their birth, become in a very few days of a dark colour, 

 it may be regarded as a fair and indubitable inference, 

 that tins change is not produced by the climate. Those, 

 indeed, M r ho contend, that the children of Negroes are 

 naturally fair, and acquire their dark complexion sole- 

 ly by the influence of the climate, wish to make out a 

 case against their own hypothesis ; for if climate could, 

 in a very few years, or even months, render the fair 

 born children of Negroes like their parents, the chil- 

 dren of Europeans, born in -Africa or the West Indies, 

 should become equally black when they grow up ; and 

 we should not now be able to distinguish any difference 

 between the Europeans and the Negroes in those coun- 

 tries. Besides, if this opinion were true, the fair born 

 children of Negroes in Europe ought to continue fair 

 during their lives, since the alleged cause of a change 

 of complexion, a burning climate, did not exist. 



2. Individuals belonging to the Caucasian variety 

 that inhabit warm countries, preserve their native fair- 

 ness of complexion, if they are not exposed to the in- 

 fluence of the climate ; while there is a uniform black 

 colour over all the parts of a negro's body. The wo- 

 men of Circassia, Arabia and Aleppo, and the Moorish 

 women, we are informed by travellers, are very fair, 

 not being exposed to the influence of the sun. (Rus- 

 sel and Poiret, in the passages already quoted ; Obser- 

 vations dc Pierre Belon, p. 199; Voyage fait par ordre 

 du Roi, dans la Palestine, quoted by Buffon, and other 

 authorities given by him, iii. 12.) On the contrary, 

 every part of the body of a Negro or Indian is equally 

 black. Soemmering asserts, that the cavity of the ax- 

 illa, the inside of the thigh, and the glans penis are 

 black ; and even a small circle of the conjunctiva round 

 the cornea is blackish, while the rest of the membrane 

 has a yellowish brown tinge. Humboldt affirms, that 

 " the Indian Caciques, who enjoy a certain degree of 

 ease in their circumstances, and who remain clothed in 

 the interior of then houses, have all the parts of their 

 body (with the exception of the hollow of their hand 

 and the sole of their foot) of the same brownish i*ed, or 

 coppery colour." And, in another place, he says, that 

 " the Indians of the mountains (whom we have already 

 noticed, as having as coppery a complexion as those in 

 the vallies) are clothed ;" and yet he never could ob- 

 serve, " that, in the same individual, those parts of the 

 body, which were covered, were less dark, than those 

 in contact with a warm and humid air." {Humboldt, 

 i. 145. and 146'.) Winterbottom makes the same re- 

 mark respecting the Negroes, which Humboldt does 

 respecting the Indians : " that the palms of their hands 

 and the soles of their feet, are nearly as white as in 

 Europeans, and continue so through life." {Winter- 

 bottom, i. 189.) This probably arises from the greater 

 thickness of the cuticle in those parts, and is an argu- 

 ment against that membrane being the seat of colour 

 in the dark-complexioned races. 



But for the illustration of these points, it is not ne- 

 cessary to refer to the Negroes and Indians, as con- 

 trasted with the Caucasian race under a warm climate ; 

 in our- own country, there are people naturally of a 

 dark complexion, and people who are merely rendered 



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