190 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



to ascertain how far it holds good. The late Dr. Daniell, who 

 had long lived on the West Coast of Africa, told me that he did 

 not believe in any such relation. He was himself unusually fair, 

 and had withstood the climate in a wonderful manner. When 

 he first arrived as a boy on the coast, an old and experienced 

 negro chief predicted from his appearance that this would prove 

 the case. Dr. Nicholson, of Antigua, after having attended to this 

 subject, writes to me that he does not think that dark-colored Eu- 

 ropeans escape the yellow-fever more than those that are light- 

 colored. Mr. J. M. Harris altogether denies that Europeans with 

 dark hair withstand a hot climate better than other men: on the 

 contrary, experience has taught him in making a selection of 

 men for service on the coast of Africa, to choose those with red 

 hair.'^ As far, therefore, as these slight indications go, there 

 seems no foundation for the hypothesis, that blackness has re- 

 sulted from the darker and darker individuals having survived 

 better during long exposure to fever-generating miasma. 



Dr. Sharpe remarks,"® that a tropical sun, which burns and 

 blisters a white skin, does not Injure a black one at all; and, as 

 he adds, this is not due to habit in the individual, for children 

 only six or eight months old are often carried about naked, and 

 are not affected. I have been assured by a medical man, that 



"ments, when stationed in unhealthy tropical districts, would be so 

 "good as fir.st to count, as a standard of comparison, how many men, 

 "in the force whence the sick are drawn, have dark and light- 

 "colored hair, and hair of intermediate or doubtful tints; and if a 

 "similar account were kept by the same medical gentlemen, of all 

 "the men who suffered from malarious and yellow fevers, or from 

 "dysentery, it would soon be apparent, after some thousand cases had 

 "been tabulated, whether there exists any relation between the color 

 "of the hair and constitutional liability to tropical diseases. Per- 

 "haps no such relation would be discovered, but the investigation is 

 "well worth making. In case any positive result were obtained, it 

 "might be of some practical use in selecting men for any particular 

 "service. Theoretically the result would be of high interest, as indi- 

 "cating one means by which a race of men inhabiting from a remote 

 "period an unhealthy tropical climate, might have become dark-col- 

 "ored by the better preservation of dark-htured or dark-complexioned 

 "individuals during a long succession of generations." 



»= 'Anthropological Review,' Jan. 1866, p. xxi. Dr. Sharpe also says 

 with respect to India ('Man a Special Creation,' 1873, p. 118), that "it 

 "has been noticed by some medical officers that Europeans with light 

 "hair and fiorid complexions suffer less from diseases of tropical 

 "countries than persons with dark hair and sallow complexions; 

 "and, so far as I know, there appear to be good grounds for this 

 "remark." On the other hand, Mr. Heddle, of Sierra Leone, "who 

 "has had more clerks killed under him than any other man," by th" 

 climate of the "West African Coast (W. Reade, 'African Sketch Book,' 

 vol. ii. p. 522), holds a directly opposite view, as does Capt. Burton. 



™ 'Man a Special Creation,' 1S73, p. 119. 



