Sketches of the History of Man. Lord Kames (Henry Home)
facts carefully collected might afford some glimmering of light. In that view, I mention the following fact. The inhabitants of the kingdom of Senaar in<23> Africa are true negroes, a jet black complexion, thick lips, flat nose, curled woolly hair. The country itself is the hottest in the world. From the report of a late traveller, they are admirably protected by nature against the violence of the heat. Their skin is to the touch remarkably cooler than that of an European; and is so in reality, no less than two degrees on Fahrenheit’s thermometer. The young women there are highly prized by the Turks for that quality.11
Thus it appears, that there are different races of men fitted by nature for different climates. Upon examination, another fact will perhaps also appear, that the natural productions of each climate make the most wholesome food for the people who are fitted to live in it. Between the tropics, the natives live chiefly on fruits, seeds, and roots; and it is the opinion of the most knowing naturalists, that such food is of all the most wholesome for the torrid zone; comprehending the hot plants, which grow there to perfection, and tend greatly to fortify the stomach. In a temperate climate, a mixture of animal and vegetable food is held to be the most wholesome; <24> and there both animals and vegetables abound. In a cold climate, animals are in plenty, but few vegetables that can serve for food to man. What physicians pronounce upon that head, I know not; but, if we dare venture a conjecture from analogy, animal food will be found the most wholesome for such as are fitted by nature to live in a cold climate.
M. Buffon, from the rule, That animals which can procreate together, and whose progeny can also procreate, are of one species, concludes, that all men are of one race or species; and endeavours to support that favourite opinion, by ascribing to the climate, to food, or to other accidental causes, all the varieties that are found among men. But is he seriously of opinion, that any operation of climate, or of other accidental cause, can account for the copper colour and smooth chin universal among the Americans, the prominence of the pudenda universal among Hottentot women, or the black nipple no less universal among female Samoides? The thick fogs of the island St. Thomas may relax the fibres of the natives, but cannot make them more<25> rigid than they are naturally. Whence, then, the difference with respect to rigidity of fibres between them and Europeans, but from original nature? Can one hope for belief in ascribing to climate the low stature of the Esquimaux, the smallness of their feet, or the overgrown size of their head; or in ascribing to climate the low stature of the Laplanders,* and their ugly visage. Lapland is indeed piercingly cold; but so is Finland, and the northern parts of Norway, the inhabitants of which are tall, comely, and well proportioned. The black colour of negroes, thick lips, flat nose, crisped woolly hair, and rank smell, distinguish them from every other race of men. The Abyssinians, on the contrary, are tall and well made, their complexion a brown olive, features well proportioned, eyes large, and of a sparkling black, lips thin, a nose rather high than flat. There is no such difference of climate between Abyssinia and Negroland as to produce these striking differences. At<26> any rate, there must be a considerable mixture both of soil and climate in these extensive regions; and yet not the least mixture is perceived in the people.
If the climate have any commanding influence, it must be displayed upon the complexion chiefly; and in that article, accordingly, our author exults. “Man,” says he, “white in Europe, black in Africa, yellow in Asia, and red in America, is still the same animal, tinged only with the colour of the climate. Where the heat is excessive, as in Guinea and Senegal, the people are perfectly black; where less excessive, as in Abyssinia, the people are less black; where it is more temperate, as in Barbary and in Arabia, they are brown; and where mild, as in Europe and Lesser Asia, they are fair”(a). But here he triumphs without a victory: he is forced to acknowledge, that the Samoides, Laplanders, and Greenlanders, are of a sallow complexion; for which he has the following salvo, that the extremities of heat and of cold produce nearly the same effects on the skin. <27> But he is totally silent upon a fact that alone overturns his whole system of colour, viz. that all Americans, without exception, are of a copper colour, though in that vast continent there is every variety of climate. The southern Chinese are white, though in the neighbourhood of the torrid zone; and women of fashion in the island Otaheite, who cover themselves from the sun, have the European complexion.12 Neither doth the black colour of some Africans, nor the brown colour of others, correspond to the climate. The people of the desert of Zaara, commonly termed Lower Ethiopia, though exposed to the vertical rays of the sun in a burning sand yielding not in heat even to Guinea, are of a tawny colour, far from being jet-black like negroes. The natives of Monomotapa are perfectly black, with crisped wooly hair, though the southern parts of that extensive kingdom are in a temperate climate. And the Caffres, even those who live near the Cape of Good Hope, are the same sort of people. The heat of Abyssinia approacheth nearer to that of Guinea; and yet, as mentioned above, the inhabitants are not black. Nor will our author’s ingenious observation<28> concerning the extremities of heat and cold account for the sallow complexion of the Samoides, Laplanders, and Greenlanders. The Finlanders and northern Norwegians live in a climate no less cold that that of the people mentioned, and yet are fair beyond other Europeans. I say more, there are many instances of races of people preserving their original colour in climates very different from their own; and not a single instance of the contrary, as far as I can learn. There have been four complete generations of negroes in Pennsylvania, without any visible change of colour: they continue jet-black as originally. The Moors in Hindostan retain their natural colour, though transplanted there more than three centuries ago. And the Mogul family continue white, like their ancestors the Tartars, though they have reigned in Hindostan above four centuries. Shaw, in his travels through Barbary, mentions a people inhabiting the mountains of Auress, bordering upon Algiers on the south, who appeared to be of a different race from the Moors. Their complexion, far from swarthy, is fair and ruddy; and their hair a deep yellow, in-<29>stead of being dark, as among the neighbouring Moors. He conjectures them to be a remnant of the Vandals, perhaps the tribe mentioned by Procopius in his first book of the Vandalic war. If the European complexion be proof against a hot climate for a thousand years, I pronounce that it will never yield to climate. In the suburbs of Cochin, a town in Malabar, there is a colony of industrious Jews of the same complexion they have in Europe. They pretend that they were established there during the captivity of Babylon: it is certain that they have been many ages in that country. Those who ascribe all to the sun, ought to consider how little probable it is, that the colour it impresses on the parents should be communicated to their infant children, who never saw the sun: I should be as soon induced to believe, with a German naturalist whose name has escaped me, that the negro colour is owing to an ancient custom in Africa of dying the skin black. Let a European for years expose himself to the sun in a hot climate, till he be quite brown, his children will nevertheless have the same complexion with those in Europe. <30> The Hottentots are continually at work, and have been for ages, to darken their complexion; but that operation has no effect on their children. From the action of the sun, is it possible to explain why a negro, like a European, is born with a ruddy skin, which turns jet-black the eighth or ninth day?*
Different tribes are distinguishable no less by internal disposition than by external figure. Nations are for the most part so blended by war, by commerce, or by other means, that vain would be the attempt to trace out an original character in any cultivated nation. But there are savage tribes, which, as far as can be discovered, continue to this day pure without mixture, which act by instinct not art, which have not learned to disguise their passions: to such I confine the inquiry. There is no propensity in human nature more general than aversion from strangers, as will be made evident after-<31>ward(a). And yet some nations must be excepted, not indeed many in number, who are remarkably kind to strangers; by which circumstance they appear to be of a singular race. In order to set the exceptions in a clear light, a few instances shall be premised of the general propensity. The nations that may be the most relied on for an original character, are islanders at a distance from the continent and from each other. Among such, great variety of character is found. Some islands adjacent to New Guinea are inhabited by negroes, a bold, mischievous, untractable race; always ready to attack strangers when they approach the shore. The people of New Zealand are of a large size and of a hoarse voice. They appeared shy according to Tasman’s account. Some of them, however, ventured on board in order to trade; but finding opportunity, they surprised seven of his men in a shallop, and without the slightest provocation