SOUTHERN AFRICA. lo; 
such numbers of objects in the streets of Rio de Janeh'o and 
St. Salvador laboring under that most disgusting and dreadful 
disorder the elephantiasis. The Hottentots know nothing of 
such a complaint ; nor did I perceive that any kind of cu- 
taneous disease was prevalent among them. 
The person of a Hottentot while young is by no means void 
of symmetry. They are clean-limbed, well-proportioned, and 
erect. Their hands, their feet, and all their joints are remarkably 
small. No protuberance of muscle to indicate strength, but a 
body as delicately formed as that of a woman, would perhaps 
to a physiognomist mark an inactive and effeminate mind. The 
face is in general extremely ugly ; but it differs very material!}' 
in different families, particularly in the nose, being in some re- 
markably flat, and in others considerably raised. The color 
of the eye is a deep chesnut : this organ is long and narrow, 
removed by the broad base of the nose to a great distance 
from each other ; and the eyelids at the extremity next the 
nose, instead of forming an angle, as in Europeans, are rounded 
into each other exactly like those of the Chinese, to whom 
indeed in many other points they bear a physical resemblance 
that is sufficiently striking. Their cheek-bones are high and 
prominent, and with the narrow-pointed chin form nearly a 
triangle. Their teeth are beautifully white. The color of 
the skin is that of a yellowish brown or a faded leaf, but ver7 
different from the sickly hue of a person in the jaundice, 
which it has been described to resemble : many indeed are 
nearly as white as Europeans. The hair is of a very singular 
nature: it does not cover the whole surface of the scalp, but 
grows in small tufts at certain distances from each other, and, 
wlicn kept short, has the appearance and feci of a liard slioc-- 
p 2 
