72 
OUR RACE AND ITS ORIGIN. 
That climate does affect color, is not a mere surmise, it is 
a fact of which there is the clearest proof. 
Of all races not one has preserved its distinctive nation- 
ality more perfectly than the Jew; his strongly marked 
features of the present day agree with those portrayed by 
the Egyptian artist of old, and is seen in the sculptures of 
Nineveh. Dispersed and scattered amongst all nations of 
the world during many ages, the Jew is at once distinguished 
from every other. But has he been equally uninfluenced by 
the varied climates he has sojourned in ? — has he not become 
in a great measure assimilated to the color of those he has 
lived amongst ? 
The English and German Jews are many shades lighter 
than the Spanish and Portuguese, and they in their turn are 
much lighter than those of Morocco, and yet they have all 
preserved the characteristic features of their race. 
But there* is still an ancient colony of J ews in India, 
supposed to belong to one of the ten tribes which were 
carried into captivity by Shalmanezer, and have thus been 
banished from Israel between two and three thousand years. 
These Jews have become assimilated to the inhabitants of 
the torrid zone in color. The Malabar Jews are black. 
The tanning power of the sun is well known, and how 
soon it tells upon the skin in the beginning of summer. It 
is the sun that gives the nut-brown shade which all admire 
and regard as the rich glow of health. If the sun has this 
power in temperate climes, is it surprising that the European 
when exposed to the heat of a tropical clime, should become 
several degrees darker than he was in his native land ? And if 
this be case with him, is there any improbability in a servile 
race, such as that of Ham was prophetically doomed to be, 
becoming black, when their hard lot compelled them con- 
stantly to endure the heat and burthen of the day ? The 
delicate European in India who carefully defends himself 
from the heat of the sun, and only dares to stir out after 
sunset or before sunrise, never willingly letting it shine upon 
him, may to a certain extent be viewed as an exception, but 
he cannot be regarded even with his yellow skin as a natu- 
