for bodily strength; but when heated, their stench is so strong, that the air, whithersoever, they pass is infected with it for above a quarter of an hour. The negroes of Cape de Verd smell not so strong; their skin likewise is more black and beautiful, their body is of a better shape, their features less harsh, they are much taller, and in disposition more mild.”
     The negroes of Guinea are well qualified for the office of tillage, and other laborious employments; those of Senegal are less vigorous, yet are good domestic servants, and very ingenious. Father Charlevoix says, that of all negroes the Senegal ones are the most shapely, most tractable, and as domestic the most useful; that the Bambaras are the tallest, but they are all idle and knavish; that the Aradas best understand the culture of the earth; that the Congos are the smallest, but most expert swimmers; that the Nagos are the most humane, the Mondongos the most cruel; the Mimes the most resolute, the most capricious, and the most subject to despair; that the Creole-negroes, from whatever nation they derive their origin, inherit nothing from their parents but the spirit of servitude and colour; they are more ingenious, rational, and adroit, but more

idle and debauched than those of Africa. He adds, that the understanding of the negroes is exceedingly contracted; that numbers of them seem to be even entirely stupid, and can never be made to count more than three; that they have no memory, and are as ignorant of what is past, as of what is to come; that the most sprightly ridicule the others with a tolerable grace; that they are full of dissimulation, and would sooner perish than divulge a secret; that they are commonly mild, humane, tractable, simple, credulous, and even superstitious; that they possess fidelity and courage, and might with proper discipline make a tolerable figure in the field.
     If the negroes are deficient in genius, they are by no means so in their feelings; they are cheerful or melancholy, laborious or inactive, friendly or hostile, according to the manner in which they are treated. If properly fed, and well treated, they are contented, joyous, obliging, and on their very countenance we may read the satisfaction of their soul. If hardly dealt with their spirits forsake them, they droop with sorrow, and will die of melancholy. They are alike impressed with injuries and favours. To the authors of the one they are implacable

enemies; while to those who use them well they imbibe an affection which makes them defy all danger and hazard to express their zeal and attachment. To their children, friends, and countrymen, they are naturally compassionate; the little they have they cheerfully distribute among those who are in necessity, though otherwise than from that necessity they have not the smallest knowledge of them. That they have excellent hearts is evident, and in having those they have the seeds of every virtue. Their sufferings demand a tear. Are they not sufficiently wretched in being reduced to a state of slavery; in being obliged always to work without reaping the smallest fruits of their labour, without being abused, buffeted, and treated like brutes? Humanity revolts at those oppressions, which nothing but thirst of gold could ever have introduced, and which would still, perhaps, produce an aggravated repetition, did not the law prescribe limits to the brutality of the master, and to the misery of his slave. Negroes are compelled to labour; and yet of the coarsest food they are sparingly supplied. Their unfeeling masters say, they can support hunger well; that what would serve an European for

one meal is to them a sufficient subsistence for three days; however little they eat or sleep, they are alike hardy, alike capable of fatigue. How can men, in whom the smallest sentiment of humanity remains, adopt such maxims, and on such shallow foundations attempt to justify excesses to which nothing could ever have given birth but the most sordid avarice? But let us turn from the gloomy picture, and return to our subject.
     Of the people who inhabit the coasts, or the interior parts of Africa, from Cape Negro to Cape de Voltes, an extent of about 400 leagues, we know little more than that they are not so black as the other negroes, and that they much resemble their neighbours the Hottentots: the latter are a people well known, and few travellers have omitted speaking of them. They are not Negroes, but Caffres; and their skin would be only of a tawny hue did they not render it black with paint and grease.
     M. Kolbe, though he has given so minute a description of the Hottentots, considers them, however, as Negroes. He assures us their hair is short, black, frizled, and woolly, and that not in a single instance did he ever perceive it long. But from this alone we are

not authorised to consider them as real negroes. M. Kolbe himself says their colour is olive, and never black, though they take the utmost pains to render it so; nor, in the next place, can there be much certainty derived from the appearance of their hair, as they never either comb or wash it, but rub it daily with grease and soot in large quantities, which gives it the resemblance of a fleece of black sheep loaded with dirt; besides, they are in disposition different from the negroes. The latter are cleanly, sedentary, and easily subjected to slavery; the former, on the other hand, are frightfully filthy, unsettled, independent, and highly jealous of their liberty. These contrarieties are more than sufficient to confirm us in the opinion that the Hottentots are of a race distinct from that of the Negroes.
     Gama, who first doubled the Cape of Good Hope, on his arrival in the bay of St. Helena, on the 4th of November, 1479, found the inhabitants black, short in stature, and ugly in aspect. He does not say, however, that they were naturally as black as the negroes, and doubtless they only appeared to him so black as he describes, from the grease and soot with which they are covered. The same traveller

remarks, that in the articulation of their voice there was something similar to a sigh. Their habits were made of skins, and their weapons consisted of sticks hardened with the fire, and pointed with the horn of some animal. To the arts in use among the Negroes, the Hottentots, it is plain, are utter strangers.
     The Dutch travellers say, that the Savages northward of the Cape are smaller than the Europeans; that their colour is a reddish brown; that they are very ugly, and take great pains to render themselves black; and their hair is like that of a man who has long hung in chains. They add, that the Hottentots are of the colour of the Mulattoes; that their visage is unshapely; that they are meagre, of a moderate height, and very nimble; and that their language resembles the clucking of turkeycocks. Father Tachard says, that though they have commonly hair as cottony as the Negroes, there are numbers who have it long, and which floats upon their shoulders. He even asserts, that some of them are as white as Europeans, but that they begrime their skin with a mixture of grease and the powder of a certain black stone, and that the women are naturally fair, but they blacken themselves to

please their husbands. Ovington says, that the Hottentots are more tawny than the other Indians; that no people bear so strong a resemblance to the Negroes in colour and features, but that they are less black, their hair is not so frizly, nor their nose so flat.
     From all these testimonies it is evident that the Hottentots are not real negroes, but a people of the black race, approaching to the whites, as the Moors of the white race do to the black. These Hottentots, moreover, form a species of very extraordinary savages. The women, who are much smaller than the men, have a kind of excrescence, or hard skin, which grows over the os pubis, and descends to the middle of the thighs in the form of an apron. Thevenot says the same thing of the Egyptian women, but instead of allowing this skin to grow, they burn it off with hot irons. I doubt whether the remark is true with respect to the Egyptian women; but certain it is that all the female natives of the Cape are subject to this monstrous deformity, and which they expose to such persons as have the curiosity to see it. The men, though not by nature, are all demi-eunuchs, being, from an absurd custom, deprived of one of their testicles at about the

age of eighteen years. M. Kolbe saw this operation performed upon a young Hottentot; and the circumstances with which the ceremony is accompanied are so singular as to merit a recital.
     After having rubbed the young man with the fat of the entrails of sheep, which had been killed on purpose, they stretched him upon his back, and tied his hands and his feet, while three or four of his friends held him. Then the priest (for it is a religious ceremony) made an incision with a very sharp knife, took out the left testicle,* and in its place deposited a ball of fat of the same size, which had been prepared with certain medicinal herbs. After sewing up the wound with the tendon of a sheep they untied the patient; but the priest before he left him rubbed his whole body with the hot fat of the sheep, or rather poured it on so plentifully, that when the fat cooled, it formed a kind of crust. This rubbing was so violent, that the young man, whose previous sufferings had been sufficiently great, was now covered with large drops of sweat, and began to smoke like a roasted capoa. On this crust

of grease the operator then made furrows with his nails, from one extremity to the other, and after making water in them, he renewed his frictions, and filled up the furrows with more grease. The instant the ceremony is concluded they leave the patient, in general more dead than alive, yet he is obliged to crawl in the best manner he can to a little hut, built for him on purpose, near the spot where the operation is performed. There he perishes or recovers without assistance or nourishment but the fat upon his skin, which he may lick if he pleases. At the expiration of two days he generally recovers. He is then allowed to appear abroad; and as a proof that his recovery is complete he must run and shew himself as nimble as a stag.
     Though all the Hottentots have broad flat noses, yet they would not be so did not their mothers, considering a prominent nose as a deformity, flatten them immediately after their birth. Their lips are also thick, their teeth white, their eye-brows bushy, their heads large, their bodies meagre, and their limbs are slender. They seldom live longer than 40 years; and this short duration of life is doubtless caused by their being continually covered with filth, and

living chiefly upon meat that is corrupted. As most travellers have already given very large accounts of these filthy people, I shall only add one fact, as related by Tavernier. The Dutch, he says, once took away a Hottentot girl, soon after her birth, and bringing her up among themselves, she became as white as any European. From this fact he presumes, that all the Hottentots would be tolerably fair, were it not for their custom of perpetually begriming themselves.
     Along the coast of Africa beyond the Cape of Good Hope, we find the land of Natal, and a people very different from the Hottentots, being better made, less ugly, and naturally more black. Their visage is oval, their nose well proportioned, their teeth white, their aspect agreeable, and their hair by nature frizly. They are also fond of grease, and wear caps made of the fat of oxen. These caps are from eight to ten inches high, and they take much time to make them; for the fat must be well refined, which they apply by little and little, and so thoroughly intermix it with the hair that it never falls off. Kolbe says, that from their birth and without any precaution to render it so, their noses are flat; they also differ from the

Hottentots in not stuttering, nor striking the palate with the tongue; that they have houses, cultivate the ground, and produce from it a kind of maize, or Turkish corn, of which they make beer, a drink unknown to the Hottentots.
     After the land of Natal, we find the territories of Sofala and Monomotapa. The people of the former, according to Pigafetta, are black, but more tall and lusty than the other Caffres. It is in the environs of the kingdom of Sofola that this author places the Amazons; but nothing is more uncertain than what has been propagated with respect to these female warriors.
     The natives of Monomotapa, the Dutch travellers inform us, are tall, well proportioned, black, and of good complexions. The young girls go naked, except a bit of calico about their middle; but so soon as they are married they put on garments. This people, notwithstanding, their blackness, are different from the negroes; their features are neither so harsh nor so ugly; their bodies have no bad smell; and they are incapable of servitude or hard labour. Father Charlevoix says, that some blacks from Monomotapa, and from Madagascar, have been seen

in America; but that they could not be inured to labour, and that they soon died.
     The natives of Madagascar and Mosambique are black, more or less. Those of Madagascar have the hair on the crown of their head less frizly than those of Mosambique. Neither of them are real negroes; and though those of the coast are enslaved by the Portuguese, yet those of the internal part of the continent are savage and jealous of their liberty. They all go absolutely naked; they feed on the flesh of elephants, and traffic with the ivory.
     In Madagascar there are blacks and whites who, though very tawny, yet seem a distinct race of men. The hair of the first is black and frizly; that of the latter is less black, less frizly, and longer. The common opinion is, that these white men derive their origin from the Chinese. But, as Francis Cauche justly remarks, there is a greater probability that they are of European race; as in all he saw, there was not one who had either the flat face or flat nose, of the Chinese. He likewise says, that these white men are fairer than the Castellans; that their hair is very long; that the black men are not flat-nosed like those of the continent; and that their lips are thin. There are also in this island,

a number of persons of an olive or tawny colour, evidently produced by the intermixture of the blacks and whites. The same traveller observes, that the natives round the bay of St. Augustine are tawny; that they have no beard; that their hair is long and straight; that they are tall and well proportioned; and that they are all circumcised, though probably they never heard of the law of Mahomet, as they have neither temples, mosques, nor religion.
     The French, who were the first who landed and settled upon the above island, found the white men we speak of; and they remarked, that the blacks paid great respect to them. Madagascar is exceedingly populous, and rich in pasturage and in cattle. Both sexes are highly debauched; nor is it a dishonour to a woman to be a prostitute. They are fond of singing, dancing, and pastimes in general. Though naturally very lazy, they have some knowledge of the mechanic arts. They have husbandmen, carpenters, potters, blacksmiths, and even goldsmiths; yet their houses are without accommodation, and they sleep upon mats, they eat flesh almost raw, and devour even the hides of their oxen after burning off the hair; they also eat the wax with the honey. The common

people go almost naked; but the richer classes wear drawers, or short petticoats, of cotton and silk.
     Those who inhabit the interior parts of Africa are not sufficiently known to be justly described. Those whom the Arabians call Zingues, are an almost savage race of black men. Marmol says, they multiply prodigiously, and would overrun all the neighbouring countries, were it not for certain hot winds, which from time to time occasion a great mortality among them.
     It appears, then from these facts, that the Negroes are blacks of a different species from the Caffres. From the descriptions we have given, it is also evident that the colour depends principally upon the climate, and that the peculiarity of the features depends greatly on the customs prevalent among different nations, such as flattening the nose, drawing back the eyelids, plucking the hair out of the eye-brows, lengthening the ears, thickening the lips, flattening the visage, &c. No stronger proof can be adduced of the influence of climate upon colour, than finding under the same latitude, and at the distance of 1000 leagues, two nations so similar as those of Senegal and Nubia;

and also that the Hottentots, who must have derived their origin from a black race, are whiter than any other Africans, because the climate in which they live is the coldest. Should there being a tawny race on one side the Senegal, and perfect blacks on the other, be stated as an objection, it is only necessary to recollect what has been already intimated concerning the effects of food, which must operate upon the colour, as well as upon the temperament of the body in general. An example may easily be had in the brute creation. The flesh of the hares, for instance, which live on plains and marshy places, is much more white than those which, though in the same neighbourhood, live on mountains and dry grounds. The colour of the flesh proceeds from that of the blood, and other humours of the body, of which the quality is necessarily influenced by the nature of the nourishment.
     In all ages has the origin of black men formed a grand object of enquiry. The ancients, who hardly knew any but those of Nubia, considered them as forming the last shade of the tawny colour; and confounded them with the Ethiopians, and other African nations, who,

though extremely brown, have more affinity to the white than to the black race. They concluded, that the differences of colour in men arose solely from the difference of climate, and that blackness was occasioned by a perpetual exposure to the violent heat of the sun. To this opinion, which seems probably, great objections arose, when it was known, that, in more southern climates, and even under the equator itself, as at Melinda, and at Mosambique, the generality of the inhabitants were not black but only very tawny; and when it was observed that black men, if transported into more temperate regions, lost nothing of their colour, but communicated it to their descendants. If we reflect on the migrations of different nations, and on the time which is necessary to render a change in the colour, we shall find no inconsistency in the opinion of the ancients. The real natives of that part of Africa are Nubians, who were originally black, and will perpetually remain so, while they inhabit the same climate, and do not mix with the whites. The Ethiopians, the Abyssinians, and even the natives of Melinda, derive their origin from the whites, yet as their religion and customs are the same with those of the

Arabians, they resemble them in colour, though indeed more tawny than those of the southern parts. This even proves, that, in the same race of men, the greater or less degree of black depends on the heat of the climate. Many ages might perhaps elapse, before a white race would become altogether black; but there is a probability that, in time, a white people, transported from the north to the equator, would experience that change, especially if they were to change their manners, and to feed solely on the productions of the warm climate.
     Of little weight is the objection which may be made to this opinion, from the difference of the features, for in the features of a negro, which have not been disfigured in his infancy, and the features of an European, there is less difference than between those of a Tartar and a Chinese, or of a Circassian and a Greek. As for the hair, its nature depends so greatly on that of the skin, that any differences which it produces ought to be considered as accidental, since we find in the same country, and in the same town, men whose hair is entirely different from one another. In France, for instance, we meet with men whose hair is as short and frizly as that of a negro; besides, so powerful is the

influence of climate upon the colour of the hair, both of men and of animals, that, in the kingdoms of the north, black hair is seldom seen; and hares, squirrels, weasels, and many other animals, which, in countries less cold, are brown or grey, are there white, or nearly so. The differences produced by cold and heat, is so conspicuous, that in Sweden hares, and certain other animals, are grey during the summer, and white in winter.
     But there is another circumstance more powerful, and, from the first view of it, indeed insuperable; namely, that in the New World there is not one true black to be seen, the natives being red, tawny, or copper-coloured. If blackness was the effect of heat the natives of the Antilles, Mexico, Santa-Fé, Guiana, the country of the Amazons, and Peru, would necessarily be so, since those countries of America are situated in the same latitude with Senegal, Guinea, and Angola, in Africa. In Brazil, Paraguay, and Chili, did the colour of men depend upon the climate, or the distance from the pole, we might expect to find men similar to the Caffres and Hottentots. But before we enter into a discussion of this subject, it is necessary that we should examine the different

natives of America, as we shall then be more enabled to form just comparisons, and to draw general conclusions.
     In the most northern parts of America we find a species of Laplanders similar to those of Europe, or to the Samoiedes of Asia, and though they are few in number yet they are diffused over a very considerable extent of country. Those who inhabit the lands of Davis’s Straits are small, of an olive complexion, and their limbs short and thick. They are skilful fishers, and eat their fish and meat raw; their drink is pure water, or the blood of the dog-fish; they are very strong, and live to a great age. Here we see the figure, colour, and manners of the Laplanders; and, what is truly singular, as in the neighbourhood of the Laplanders of Europe, we meet with the Finlanders, who are white, comely, tall, and well made; so, adjacent to the Laplanders of America, we meet with a species of men tall, well made, white, and with features exceedingly regular.
     Of a different race seem the savages of Hudson’s Bay, and northward of the land of Labrador; although small, ugly, and unshapely, their visage is almost covered with hair, like

the savages of Jesso, northward of Japan: in summer they dwell in tents made of skins of the rein-deer; in winter they live under ground, like the Laplanders and the Samoiedes, and sleep together promiscuously without the smallest ceremony. They live to a great age, though they feed on nothing but raw meat and fish. The savages of Newfoundland resemble those of Davis’s Straits, they are low in stature, have little or no beard, broad and flat faces; large eyes and flat nosed; they are also far from being unlike the savages in the environs of Greenland.
     Besides these savages, who are scattered over the most northern parts of America, we find a more numerous and different race in Canada, and who occupy the vast extent of territory as far as the Assiniboils. These are all tall, robust, and well-made; have black hair and eyes, teeth very white, a tawny complexion, little beard, and hardly a vestige of hair on their bodies; they are hardy, indefatigable travellers, and very nimble runners. They are alike unaffected by excesses of hunger, or of eating; they are bold, hardy, grave, and sedate. So strongly, indeed, do they resemble the Oriental Tartars in colour, form, and features, as also in disposition,