doubtedly an analogous coloring matter exists in leaves and flowers, as appears by their straggling, and white spots.

Almost all white animals are harmless and good natured, or candid ;* the black ones more violent and dangerous. In the same manner white plants are insipid, dark colored, on the contrary, often poisonous.

This unnatural white color is always innate, and betrays disease, although it is not generally communicated from one person to another, because the wan-complexioned are of a weak, effeminate constitution, and seldom capable of reproduction. It has been remarked in the dissection of Albinos, that the mucous and sub-cutaneous tissue of Malpighi, in which the coloring matter resides, was wanting; so that the chorion and the epidermis were of a dull whiteness, peculiar to them. For the same reason Albinos are deprived of the black color, which tinges with its hue the choroid membrane of the eye, and communicates it to the iris. Their eyes, as well as those of wan-complexioned persons, are red, similar to those of white rabbits, pigeons, &c. That red color results from the plexus of blood vessels, which ramifies on the choroid, and appears naked; but, as the absence of black coloring matter admits the light too freely into the eye during the day, it follows that Dondos, Albinos, &c. cannot bear the broad day light, and thus, distinguish objects more easily in the twilight, or even at night, when it is not too dark. They are also all Nyctalops; hence the history of night men, or Kakerlaks.† Linnæus who was in the dark, on account of the state of natural philosophy in his time, thought they formed a peculiar species of men. He described them as producing a kind of hiss instead of an articulate sound; wandering in the night time;

*From Candids Latin. White-Good natured.

+ Lionel Wafer, a traveller and a Buccanneer, remarked American Albinos at the Isthmus of Darien, (Voyage de Dampier, description del' Isthme de arien, par Wafer, vol. 3, like the Negro Albinos of the Portuguese, and the Kakerlaks of the Dutch

sallying forth as robbers to plunder; spending the whole day in dark caverns, and entirely deprived of understanding. He supposed them animals superior to monkeys, and inferior to men; nearly the same as the Fawns, those lascivious satyrs, creatures of the lively and fecund fancy of the ancients, who worshiped them as rural gods.

The Quimos, according to the accounts of some travellers, form a variety of men, hardly three feet and a half high, with very long arms, the face of a monkey, and a cadaverous wrinkled skin. They are to be found in the mountains of Madagascar, where they hide themselves; when attacked they display a great deal of courage. The breasts of the females are very small; all have a sad and stupid countenance.

Some peculiar degeneration in this region has probably given rise to the supposition that there is a distinct race inhabiting that country.*

Several travellers mention a race of men with a tail, in the Islands of the Indian Ocean; but it is certain they have been deceived, and mistook monkeys for men. The monkeys ranking nearest to our species, as the Orang-Outang Pongo, the Jocko or Chimpanze, and the Gibbos having no tails, it is therefore rational to believe that man must always be without it.f

* Legentil and several modern travellers have disproved a tradition related by Flacourt, and thoughtlessly admitted by the Naturalist Commerson, about a nation of Dwarfs, inhabiting the centre of the Island of Madagascar. (Fressanges, Annal. des Voyages, v. 2, p. 25;) see also Rochon, Voyage à Madagascar, Paris, 1792, in 80.

+ Koeping gives an account of men seen by him in the Islands of Nicobar. "They were, says he, of a very tall stature and ugly; their color of a deep yellow. They had tails resembling those of cats, but hairless, and which they could move at will. Perhaps they were large monkeys, or men covered with hides of tail-bearing animals.” See Girtanner, Buffon, Blumenbach, Desbrosses, &c. Lord Monboddo, who was not destitute of genius, gives credit to the existence of men with tails. (Of the origin and progress of language, Edinburgh, 1773, in So. vol. 1, p. 134.) See also Mauper

We may remark that men with a blueish, or ash-color, ed iris approach by the great whiteness of their skin, to the wan-complexioned constitution; a brilliant light dazzles them, although in a less degree than the former. It is not so with men whose iris and skin are dark; but when they grow old, the iris loses its color, and the sun's rays become too strong for them.

Negroes being created to bear the glaring of the sun, their iris is always supplied with a dark brown coloring matter; their conjonctiva is also darker than that of Europeans. The reach of their eyes is not so great as that of whites, and their round protruding eyes resemble those of monkeys; in fact their caruncula, or "Plica Lunaris" of the great angle of the eye,is placed more forward, as in the Orang Outang.*

The blacks, says Burckhardt,t firmly belive from the appearance of their Albinos, or white negroes, that a white skin is the effect of disease, and presents a symptom of weakness. There is not the least doubt in their opinion,

tuis (Euvres, Lyon, 1756, in So. v. 2, p. 351.) Mongez, Journal de Physique, t. xi., ¡773, p. 143, quotes a passage of Mr. Lalande, in which the latter says he saw in Paris a journeyman saddler with an excrescence of the Coccyx, three or four inches long, which troubled him when about to dress or sit down. Strays, Voyages, Edit. Amsterd., 1681, in 40. p. 53, maintains he saw at the South of Formosa and Mindora Islands, men with a tail one foot long and covered with hair; Gemelli Carreri, Voyages, v. 5, p. 65, relates the same fact observed in the Lucon Island.

We may be allowed to question this testimony; the men mentioned by the travellers were monkeys. In fact Orang-Outangs and other species, hose conformation resembles that of man the most, are without a tail. Aristotle concludes from the fact, that all species without tails are more lascivious, or their legs larger than those of animals with tails, as this organ attracts to itself a part of the nourishment necessary to the inferior limbs.

*Samuel Thomas Sommerring, Icones oculi humani, Francof. ad. Man., 1804, in fol. p. 5.

t Reise Von Nubien.

that a white man is a very inferior being, and they represent Satan with a white skin.*

Some Boushouanas Hottentots (Betjouanas of Lichtenstein,) doubted the existence of white men until they saw Dutchmen. They believed that the globe was inhabited by black nations, and nothing could be handsomer than a Hottentot.

ON NEGRESSES,

Negroes and Negresses both exhibit great lasciviousness, though the latter carry it to an extent unknown in our climates,* a characteristic which may be deduced from some peculiarities of structure, as well as from observation. It is this temperament which is supposed to render them attractive in the eyes of Europeans, when the disgust which at first arises has worn off. This, together with the warmth of the climate, the facility of approach, and the violent and almost morbid fascination which frequently succeeds antipathy and disgust, is alleged by Raynal to account for the immoderate passions which they kindle in the bosoms of Europeans. African women are said also to be capable of strong individual preferences, frequently displaying, in this respect, more strength and tenacity, than is exhibited by European women.t

As to the rest, nothing on earth can be more disgusting than the "Toilette" of Hottentot women. They are greased with a mixture of tallow and soot, or covered with cow-dung and a dry skin; wearing instead of bracelets, half putrid bowels of animals; living in the utmost filth and dirt; repulsive by foetid perspiration, ugly forms, a horrid flat nose, a snouted mouth, a glutinous skin, of a

* Histoire Générale des Voyages, v. 3, p. 96; Labat, Ethiop., vol. 2, Thomas Rhoe; in the Collect. of Melch. Thevenot, and almost all travellers in Africa, maintain on the contrary that Negroes are more captivated by white women than by Negresses; which seems to be a proof of the superiority of our race.

Histoire Philos., . ix. c. xxix.