200 



ON THE VARIETIES 



refer; nor that they belong so exclusively to such division as never to be 

 traced, even by a natural introduction, among other divisions. The second 

 is, that from the restless or inquiring spirit of several of the divisions, and the 

 migrations which have hence ensued, we ought to expect to meet occasion- 

 ally Avith the distinctive characters of such divisions among other divisions, 

 and in regions to which they do not naturally appertain. 



A perfect jet of the skin has never, perhaps, been found in our own coun- 

 try, in any person of genuine English race ; but a dark, swarthy, and even 

 copper-colour is by no means uncommon ; and an equal difference is ob- 

 servable in the globularity of the head, and the flatness or sharpness of the 

 face. In like manner the skin is occasionally found fair among the red tribes 

 of America ;* and black among the tawny tribes of Australia, and even the 

 olive nations of India. So Captain Cook informs us that, among the natives 

 of the Friendly Islands, he saw hundreds of European faces, and not a few 

 genuine Roman noses. And Adanson asserts that he was struck with the 

 general beauty and proportion of several Senegambian females, in spite of 

 their colour : while Vailant and Le Maire give a similar testimony concern- 

 ing the CafFre women, and the negresses of Gambia and Senegal. 



The most inquiring and consequently the most migratory of the five divi- 

 sions under which we are contemplating the race of man, is unquestionably 

 the European. And hence we have reason to expect that we shall meet with 

 more numerous establishments of the European form in regions to which it 

 does not naturally belong than of any of the others. And experience con- 

 firms this expectation. It is, in truth, the migratory spirit of this peculiar 

 division that has filled Europe itself; for, as I have already had occasion to 

 remark, the division in its earliest state was confined to the southern foot of 

 the Caucasus, and branched out into Europe from this region. And thus, in 

 the west of Africa, extending from Fez to the Zaara, we discover considerable 

 patches of the same lineage, the progenitors of which have either shot 

 through the isthmus of Suez or crossed the Mediterranean; while every one 

 knows that, from a similar spirit of migration, America, both North and 

 South, and India in its southern promontory of the Deccan, have for several 

 centuries past exhibited patches of a similar kind. 



The Asiatic race, properly so called, have in like manner had their migra- 

 tions ; and hence we trace the form and features of this family, spreading 

 southerly through the whole of Egypt and Abyssinia ; northerly from the 

 Imaus or Caff of the Caucasus towards ibe Arctic boundaries of Europe and 

 America, amid the Laplanders and Nova Zemblians of the former, and the 

 Greenlanders and Iskimos or (as we have it from the French writers) Esqui- 

 maux of the latter; and westerly from the north of Persia along the banks 

 of the Euxine, in successive waves, and chiefly under the different denomi- 

 nations of Fins, Goths, Alans, and Huns ; the last two uniting on various 

 occasions, and especially under the triumphant banners of Attila, and over- 

 running great part of Germany, and consequently intermixing with the 

 European race ; at the same time driving the Fins into higher northern lati- 

 tudes, along the shores of the Baltic, where they at length intermingled with 

 the Laplanders. Among both these nations, therefore, whether blended or 

 separate, we still meet with very strong marks of the true, genuine Asiatic 

 face, flat, wide, and of a sallow or olive hue ; the eyes being small, and the 

 hair dark and scanty. 



It is probable, also, that the more polished nations of America, as the 

 Toltecs and Mexicans that belong to the northern, and the Peruvians and 

 Araucans that belong to the southern division of this continent, have originated 

 from an Asiatic source. De Guignes, Forster, and Humboldt concur in be- 

 lieving them to have been of Chinese or Japanese descent ; while the mass 

 of the numerous tribes that constitute the chief population of this continent, 

 and are altogether distinguished in external and internal character from the 

 preceding nations, seems to have issued, in various migrations, from some of 



* 8ee M. Humboldt ; Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne. Paris, 1808, 1869. 



