144 



EARL IT HISTORY OF .CAN XIND 



may be held as established, for there are Arab and Je^iah 

 families of ancient settlement in i'Torthern Africa who 

 have become as black as the other inhabitants. There 

 are also facts which seem to show the possibility of a nat- 

 ural transition by generation from the black to the white 

 complexion, and from the white to the black. True whitea 

 (apart from Albinoes) are not unfrequently born among 

 the Negroes, and the tendency to this singularity is trans- 

 mitted in families. There is at least one authentic in- 

 stance of a set of perfectly black children being born to 

 an Arab couple in whose ancestry no such blood had in- 

 termingled. This occurred in the valley of the Jordan, 

 where it is remarkable that the Arab population in gene- 

 ral have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair 

 than any other tribes of the same nation.* 



The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful 

 effect in modifying the human figure in the course of gen- 

 erations, and this even in its osseous structure. About 

 two hundred years ago, a number of people were driven 

 by a barbarous policy from the counties of Antrim ani 

 Down, in Ireland, towards the sea-coast, where they hav < 

 ever since been settled, but in unusually miserable cir 

 cumstances, even for Ireland ; and the consequence, is, tha 

 they exhibit peculiar features of the most repulsive kind, 

 projecting jaws with large open mouths, depressed noses, 

 high cheek bones, and bow legs, together with an ex- 

 tremely diminutive stature. These, with an abnormal 

 slenderness of the limbs, are the outward marks of a low 

 and barbarous condition all over the world ; it is particu- 

 larly seen in the Australian aborigines. On the other 

 hand, the beauty of the higher ranks in England is very 

 remarkable, being, in the main, as clearly a result of good 

 external conditions. " Coarse, unwholesome, and ill- 

 prepared food," says Buffon, " makes the human race de 

 generate. All those people who live miserably are ugly 

 and ill-made. Even in France, the country people are 

 not so beautiful as those who live in towns ; and I have 

 often remarked that in those villages where the peo[ le 

 are richer and better fed than in others, the men are like- 

 wise more handsome, and have better countenances." He 

 might have added, that elegant and commodious dwell- 



* Buckingham's Travels among the Arabs. This fact is tha 

 more valuable to the argument, as having been set down with no 

 regard to any kind o! hypothesis. 



