39 6 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
to remain in a closed room with him. The odour is certainly stronger in 
men than in women. 
Except in cases of Xanthism the colour of the iris of the eye is black, 
brown, or very dark hazel. In some individuals the sclerotic, or “white” of 
the eye, is yellow and clouded ; in others again it is very clear and white. 
The clear sclerotic generally accompanies the more refined type of feature, 
and the obverse is the case when the “white” is yellow and murky. The 
eyes are rather deeply set than otherwise. I have not seen any case in 
which they were prominent or a fleur de tite. Both the upper and under 
eyelids are occasionally thick and prominent, especially in the dull, heavy 
countenances of slaves, but in smart well-set-up men and women the upper 
eyelid is often covered by the protuberance of the skin in such a way as 
gives a clear-cut, sharp, decided look to a face. I will not say I have never 
seen the eyes with an upward turn on the outer side suggestive of an almond 
shaped and a Mongoloid look ; but such cases are very exceptional and rare 
—much more so than they are in the Congo region, where I have occasionally 
noticed negroes with a distinctly Mongoloid cast of countenance. The cheek 
bones are usually prominent—in some cases they are very prominent, though 
naturally in a good-looking face their development is less marked. The 
nose is almost always a negro nose—that is to say with a broad depressed 
bridge (depressed in the malar region), a snub tip, and broad, expanded 
nostrils. The average, not by any means the ugliest, type in it may be 
observed in my accompanying drawing of the head of an Atonga seen in 
profile. In some of the people of Itawa I have noticed noses with rather 
arched bridges, somewhat Papuan in type, the arch being rather over the tip 
than at the beginning of the bridge. 
There is never any prominence of the brows equal to what is seen in the 
Australian man. Still on the whole the brow is fairly prominent. Yet many 
of the women and some of the men exhibit that peculiar bojnbe forehead 
with brows depressed over the nose which is rather well illustrated in the 
portrait of a young Bushman given on p. 53 of Chapter III. The lips are 
usually everted and very large. In some of the finer types there is, of course, 
considerable modification in this feature, though the thin lip seen in the 
European or the Asiatic is never found amongst them. Some of the lips are 
so much everted that a considerable amount of pink skin shows. In the cases 
where the mouth is of a finer design and the lip is thinner nothing but the 
black skin of the outer part of the lip is visible. 1 The teeth are uniformly 
excellent—rather large-sized, white, and regular. I have never noticed any 
marked projection or exceptional size of the canines, not even as much as 
I have often seen in Europeans; certainly not such as can be seen in the 
remarkable Tasmanian skull at the Anthropological Institute, 2 where the 
canines, especially of the upper jaw, are prominent, projecting, and slightly 
pointed. 
1 The thick everted lip of the negro is not, in my opinion, a Simian characteristic. The most ape¬ 
like faces in existing humanity are seen amongst the Chinese and Annamites. In these the upper lip 
is long, broad and rather turned in. The long ape-like upper lip is not infrequently seen amongst 
Europeans, in certain Celtic types. I imagine that when the negro type began to diverge from the 
original human ancestor he retained his long Simian lips, and he got into the habit of turning them inside 
out in order to expose the teeth more readily, and to accommodate the inconveniently long lip to the 
decreasing size of the jaws and the diminishing prognathism. 
2 Happy Tasmania, to have possessed the most ape-like form of man ! Unhappy Tasmania, to 
have been so ignorant as not to appreciate your privilege, and to have exterminated in your wanton 
ignorance this priceless survival ! 
