In the first chapter something has been already said as to the striking distinctions between the various races of man, seen in looking closely at the African negro, the Coolie of India, and the Chinese. Even among Europeans, the broad contrast between the fair Dane and the dark Genoese is recognised by all. Some further comparison has now to be made of the special differences between race and race, though the reader must understand that, without proper anatomical examination, such comparison can only be slight and imperfect. Anthropology finds race-differences most clearly in stature and proportions of limbs, conformation of the skull and the brain within, characters of features, skin, eyes, and hair, peculiarities of constitution, and mental and moral temperament.

In comparing races as to their stature, we concern ourselves not with the tallest or shortest men of each tribe, but with the ordinary or average-sized men who may be taken as fair representatives of their whole tribe. The difference of general stature is well shown where a tall and a short people come together in one district. Thus in Australia the average English colonist of 5 ft. 8 in. looks clear over the heads of the 5 ft. 4 in. Chinese labourers. Still more in Sweden does the Swede of 5 ft. 7 in. tower over the stunted Lapps, whose average measure is not much over 5 ft. Among the tallest of mankind are the Patagonians, who seemed a race of giants to the Europeans who first watched them striding along their cliffs draped in their skin cloaks; it was even declared that the heads of Magalhaens’ men hardly reached the waist of the first Patagonian they met. Modern travellers find, on measuring them, that they really often reach 6 ft. 4 in., their mean height being about 5 ft. 11 in.—three or four inches taller than average Englishmen. The shortest of mankind are the Bushmen and related tribes in South Africa, with an average height not far exceeding 4 ft. 6 in. A fair contrast between the tallest and shortest races of mankind may be seen in Fig. 8, where a Patagonian is drawn side by side with a Bushman, whose head only reaches to his breast. Thus the tallest race of man is less than one-fourth higher than the shortest, a fact which seems surprising to those not used to measurements. Struck by the effect of such difference of stature one is apt to form an exaggerated notion of its amount, which is really small compared with the disproportion in size between various breeds of other species of animals, as the toy pug and the mastiff, or the Shetland pony and the dray-horse. In general, the stature of the women of any race may be taken as about one-sixteenth less than that of the men. Thus in England a man of 5 ft. 8 in. and a woman of 5 ft. 4 in. look an ordinary well-matched couple.

Not only the stature, but the proportions of the body differ in men of various races. Care must be taken not to confuse real race-differences with the alterations made by the individual’s early training or habit of life, such as the bow-legs of grooms, and the still more crooked legs of the Indians of British Columbia, who get them misshaped by continually sitting cramped up in their canoes. A man’s measure round the chest depends a good deal on his way of life, as do also the lengths of arm and leg, which are not even the same in soldiers and sailors. But there are certain distinctions which are inherited, and mark different races. Thus there are long-limbed and short-limbed tribes of mankind. The African negro is remarkable for length of arm and leg, the Aymara Indian of Peru for shortness. Supposing an ordinary Englishman to be altered to the build of a negro, he would want 2 in. more in the arm and 1 in. more in the leg, while to bring him to the proportions of an Aymara his arm would have to be shortened ½ in. and his leg 1 in. from their present lengths. An instructive way of noticing these differences is to look back to the skeletons of apes and man (Fig. 5). In an upright position and reaching down with the middle finger, the gibbon can touch its foot, the orang its ankle, the chimpanzee its knee, while man only reaches partly down his thigh. Here, however, there seems to be a real distinction among the races of man. Negro soldiers standing at drill bring the middle finger-tip an inch or two nearer the knee than white men can do, and some have been even known to touch the knee-pan. Such differences, however, are less remarkable than the general correspondence in bodily proportions of a model of strength and beauty, to whatever race he may belong. Even good judges have been led to forget the niceties of race-type and to treat the form of the athlete as everywhere one and the same. Thus Benjamin West, the American painter, when he came to Rome and saw the Belvedere Apollo, exclaimed, “It is a young Mohawk warrior!” Much the same has been said of the proportions of Zulu athletes. Yet if fairly-chosen photographs of Kafirs be compared with a classic model such as the Apollo, it will be noticed that the trunk of the African has a somewhat wall-sided straightness, wanting in the inward slope which gives fineness to the waist, and in the expansion below which gives breadth across the hips, these being two of the most noticeable points in the classic model which our painters recognise as an ideal of manly beauty. By this kind of comparison much may be done in distinguishing standard types of races. Yet, while acknowledging the reality of such varieties in the build of men of different race, we have again to remark how slight they are compared with the variation in the limbs of different breeds of lower animals.

In comparing races, one of the first questions that occurs is whether people who differ so much intellectually as savage tribes and civilized nations, show any corresponding difference in their brain. There is, in fact, a considerable difference. The most usual way of ascertaining the quantity of brain is to measure the capacity of the brain-case by filling skulls with shot or seed. Professor Flower gives as a mean estimate of the contents of skulls in cubic inches, Australian, seventy-nine; African, eighty-five; European, ninety-one. Eminent anatomists also think that the brain of the European is somewhat more complex in its convolutions than the brain of a Negro or Hottentot. Thus, though these observations are far from perfect, they show a connexion between a more full and intricate system of brain-cells and fibres, and a higher intellectual power, in the races which have risen in the scale of civilization.

The form of the skull itself, so important in its relation to the brain within and the expressive features without, has been to the anatomist one of the best means of distinguishing races. It is often possible to tell by inspection of a skull what race it belongs to. The narrow cranium of the negro (Fig. 9 a) would not be mistaken for the broad cranium of the Samoyed (Fig. 9 c.) On taking down from a museum shelf a certain narrow, wall-sided, roof-topped, forward-jawed skull with unusually strong brow-ridges (Fig. 10 d), there is no difficulty in recognising it as Australian. In comparing skulls, some of the most easily noticeable distinctions are the following.

When looked at from the vertical or top view, the proportion of breadth to length is seen as in Fig. 9. Taking the diameter from back to front as 100, the cross diameter gives the so-called index of breadth, which is here about 70 in the Negro (a), 80 in the European (b), and 85 in the Samoyed (c). Such skulls are classed respectively as dolichokephalic, or “long-headed;” mesokephalic, or “middle-headed;” and brachykephalic, or “short-headed.” A model skull of a flexible material like gutta-percha, if of the middle shape, like that of an ordinary Englishman, might, by pressure at the sides, be made long like a negro’s, or by pressure at back and front be brought to the broad Tatar form. In the above figure it may be noticed that while some skulls, as b, have a somewhat elliptical form, others, as a, are ovoid, having the longest cross diameter considerably behind the centre. Also in some classes of skulls, as in a, the zygomatic arches connecting the skull and face are fully seen; while in others, as b and c, the bulging of the skull almost hides them. In the front and back view of skulls, the proportion of width to height is taken in much the same way as the index of breadth just described. Next, Fig. 10, which represents in profile the skulls of an Australian (d), a negro (e), and an Englishman (f), shows the strong difference in the facial angle between the two lower races and our own. The Australian and African are prognathous, or “forward-jawed,” while the European is orthognathous, or “upright-jawed.” At the same time the Australian and African have more retreating foreheads than the European, to the disadvantage of the frontal lobes of their brain as compared with ours. Thus the upper and lower parts of the profile combine to give the faces of these less-civilized peoples a somewhat ape-like slope, as distinguished from the more nearly upright European face.

Not to go into nicer distinctions of cranial measurement, let us now glance at the evident points of the living face. To some extent feature directly follows the shape of the skull beneath. Thus the contrast just mentioned, between the forward-sloping negro skull and its more upright form in the white race, is as plainly seen in the portraits of a Swaheli negro and a Persian, given in Fig. 11. On looking at the female portraits in Fig. 12, the Barolong girl (South Africa) may be selected as an example of the effect of narrowness of skull (b), in contrast with the broader Tatar, and North American faces (d, f). She also shows the convex African forehead, while they, as well as the Hottentot (c), show the effect of high cheek-bones. The Tatar and Japanese faces (d, e) show the skew-eyelids of the Mongolian race. Much of the character of the human face depends on the shape of the softer parts—nose, lips, cheeks, chin, &c., which are often excellent marks to distinguish race. Contrasts in the form of nose may even exceed that here shown between the aquiline of the Persian and the snub of the Negro in Figs. 11 and 13. European travellers in Tartary in the middle ages described its flat-nosed inhabitants as having no noses at all, but breathing through holes in their faces. By pushing the tips of our own noses upward, we can in some degree imitate the manner in which various other races, notably the negro, show the opening of the nostrils in full face. Our thin, close-fitting lips, differ in the extreme from those of the negro, well seen in the portrait (Fig. 13) of Jacob Wainwright, Livingstone’s faithful boy. We cannot imitate the negro lip by mere pouting, but must push the edges up and down with the fingers to show more of the inner lip. The expression of the human face, on which intelligence and feeling write themselves in visible characters, requires an artist’s training to understand and describe. The mere contour of the features, as taken by photography in an unchanging attitude, has delicate characters which we appreciate by long experience in studying faces, but which elude exact description or measurement. With the purpose of calling attention to some well-marked peculiarities of the human face in different races, a small group of female faces (Fig. 12) is here given, all young, and such as would be considered among their own people as at least moderately handsome. Setting aside hair and complexion, there is still enough difference in the actual outline of the features to distinguish the Negro, Kafir, Hottentot, Tatar, Japanese, and North American faces from the English face below.

The colour of the skin, that important mark of race, may be best understood by looking at the darkest variety. The dark hue of the negro does not lie so deep as the innermost or true skin, which is substantially alike among all races of mankind. The seat of the colouring is well shown in Fig. 14, a highly magnified section of the skin of a negro. Here a shows the surface of the true skin with its papillæ; this is covered by the mucous layer, the innermost cells of which (b) are deeply coloured by small grains of black or brown pigment, the colour shading down to brownish or yellowish toward the outer surface of this mucous layer (c), while even the outside scarf-skin (d) is slightly tinged. The negro, in spite of his name, is not black, but deep brown, and even this darkest hue does not appear at the beginning of life, for the new-born negro child is reddish brown, soon becoming slaty grey, and then darkening. Nor does the darkest tint ever extend over the negro’s whole body, but his soles and palms are brown. When Blumenbach, the anthropologist, saw Kemble play Othello (made up in the usual way, with blackened face and black gloves, to represent a negro) he complained that the whole illusion was spoilt for him when the actor opened his hands. The brown races, such as the native Americans, have the colouring of the skin in a less degree than the Africans, and with them also it is not till some time after birth that the full depth of complexion is reached. The colouring of the dark races appears to be similar in nature to the temporary freckling and sun-burning of the fair white race. Also, Europeans have permanent dark colouring in some portions of the skin, though not exposed to the sun; the areola of the breast, for instance; while in certain affections, known by the medical name of melanism, patches closely resembling negro skin appear on the body. On the whole it seems that the distinction of colour, from the fairest Englishman to the darkest African, has no hard and fast lines, but varies gradually from one tint to another. It is instructive to notice that there occur in the various races certain individuals in whom the colouring matter of the skin is wanting, the so-called albinos. The contrast between their morbid whiteness and any ordinary fairness of complexion is most remarkable in the negro albinos (to call them by this self-contradictory term), who have the well-known African features, but in dead white, as it were a cast of a negro in plaster.

The natural hue of skin farthest from that of the negro is the complexion of the fair race of Northern Europe, of which perfect types are to be met with in Scandinavia, North Germany, and England. In such fair or blonde people the almost transparent skin has its pink tinge by showing the small blood-vessels through it. In the nations of Southern Europe, such as Italians and Spaniards, the browner complexion to some extent hides this red, which among darker peoples in other quarters of the world ceases to be discernible. Thus the difference between light and dark races is well observed in their blushing, which is caused by the rush of hot red blood into the vessels near the surface of the body. Albinos shows this with the utmost intenseness, not only a general glow appearing, but the patches of colour being clearly marked out. The blush, vivid through the blonde skin of the Dane, is more obscurely seen in the Spanish brunette; but in the dark-brown Peruvian, or the yet blacker African, though a hand or a thermometer put to the cheek will detect the blush by its heat, the somewhat increased depth of colour is hardly perceptible to the eye. The contrary effect, paleness, caused by retreat of blood from the surface, is in like manner masked by dark tints of skin.

As a character of race, the colour of the skin has from ancient times been reckoned the most distinctive of all. The Egyptian painters, three or four thousand years ago used regular tints for this purpose, as may be seen in paintings at the British Museum. These colours do not pretend to be exact, as is seen by the native Egyptian gentlemen being painted dark brick-red, but the ladies pale yellow, so as to signify in an exaggerated way their lighter complexion. It was in this conventional manner that they coloured the four principal races of mankind known to them, the Egyptians themselves red-brown, the nations of Palestine yellow-brown, the Libyans yellow-white, and the Æthiopians coal-black (see page 4). In the history of the world, colour has often been the sign by which nations accounting themselves the nobler have marked off their inferiors. The Sanskrit word for caste is varna, that is, “colour;” and this shows how their distinction of high and low caste arose. India was inhabited by dark indigenous peoples before the fairer Aryan race invaded the land, and the descendants of conquerors and conquered are still in some measure to be traced among the light-complexioned high-caste, and the dark-complexioned low-caste families. Nor has the distinction of colour ceased in the midst of modern civilization. The Englishman’s white skin is to him, as of old, a caste-mark of separation from the yellow, brown, or black “natives,” as he contemptuously calls them, in other quarters of the globe.

The range of complexion among mankind, beginning with the tint of the fair-whites of Northern Europe and the dark-whites of Southern Europe, passes to the brownish-yellow of the Malays, and the full-brown of American tribes, the deep-brown of Australians, and the black-brown of Negros. Until modern times these race-tints have generally been described with too little care, and named as conventionally as the Egyptians painted them. Now, however, the traveller by using Broca’s set of pattern colours, records the colour of any tribe he is observing, with the accuracy of a mercer matching a piece of silk. The evaporation from the human skin is accompanied by a smell which differs in different races. The peculiar rancid scent by which the African negro may be detected even at a distance is the most marked of these. The odour of the brown American tribes is again different, while they have been known, to express dislike at the white man’s smell. This peculiarity, which not only indicates difference in the secretions of the skin, but seems connected with liability to certain fevers, &c., is a race-character of some importance.

The part of the human body which shows the greatest variety of colour in different individuals, is the iris of the eye. This is the more noticeable because the adjacent parts vary particularly little among mankind. The sclerotic coat, which in a healthy European is almost what it is called, the “white” of the eye, only takes a slightly yellow tinge among the darkest races, as the African negro. Again, in ordinary eyes of all races, the pupil in the centre of the iris appears absolutely black, being in fact transparent, and showing through to the black pigment lining the choroid coat at the back of the eye. But the iris itself, if examined in a number of types of men, has most various colour. In understanding the coloration of the eye, as of the skin, the peculiarities of albinos are instructive. The pink of their eyes (as of white rabbits) is caused by absence of the black pigment above-mentioned, so that light passing out through the iris and pupil is tinged red from the blood-vessels at the back; thus their eyes may be seen to blush with the rest of the face. This want of the protecting black pigment also accounts for the sensitiveness to light which makes albinos avoid a glare; it was for this reason that the Dutch gave them the name of kakkerlaken, or “cockroaches,” these creatures also shunning the light. Prof. Broca, in his scale of colours of eyes, arranges shades of orange, green, blue, and violet-grey. But one has only to look closely into any eye to see the impossibility of recording its complex pattern of colours; indeed what is done is to observe it from a distance so that its tints blend into one uniform hue. It need hardly be said that what are popularly called black eyes are far from having the iris really black like the pupil; eyes described as black are commonly of the deepest shades of brown or violet. These so-called black eyes are by far the most numerous in the world, belonging not only to brown-black, brown, and yellow races, but even prevailing among the darker varieties of the white race, such as Greeks and Spaniards. Aristotle remarks that the colour of the eyes follows that of the skin. Indeed it is plain that there is a connection of the colours of the skin, eyes, and hair among mankind. In races with the darker skin and black hair, the darkest eyes generally prevail, while a fair complexion is usually accompanied by the lighter tints of iris, especially blue. A fair Saxon with black eyes, or a full-grown negro with pale blue eyes, would be looked at with surprise. Yet we know by our own country-people how difficult it is to lay down exact rules as to matching colours in complexion. Thus the combination of black hair with dark blue or grey eyes is frequent in some districts of Great Britain. Dr. Barnard Davis and Dr. Beddoe think it indicates Keltic blood.

From ancient times, the colour and form of the hair have been noticed as distinctive marks of race. Thus Strabo mentions the Æthiopians as black men with woolly hair, and Tacitus describes the German warriors of his day with their fierce blue eyes and tawny hair. As to colour of hair, the most usual is black, or shades so dark as to be taken for black, which belongs not only to the dark-skinned Africans and Americans, but to the yellow Chinese and the dark-whites such as Hindus or Jews. Mr. Sorby remarks that blackness of hair is due to black pigment being present in such quantity as to overpower whatever red or yellow pigment the hair may also contain. In the fair-white peoples of Northern Europe, on the contrary, flaxen or chestnut hair prevails. Thus we see that there is a connection between fair hair and fair skin, and dark hair and dark skin. But it is impossible to lay down a rule for intermediate tints, for the red-brown or auburn hair common in fair-skinned peoples occurs among darker races, and dark-brown hair has a still wider range. Our own extremely mixed nation shows every variety from flaxen and golden to raven black. As to the form of the hair, its well-known differences may be seen in the female portraits in Fig. 12, where the Africans on the left show the woolly or frizzy kind, where the hair naturally curls into little corkscrew-spirals, while the Asiatic and American heads on the right have straight hair like a horse’s mane. Between these extreme kinds are the flowing or wavy hair, and the curly hair which winds in large spirals; the English hair in the figure is rather of the latter variety. If cross sections of single hairs are examined under the microscope, their differences of form are seen as in four of the sections by Pruner-Bey (Fig. 15). The almost circular Mongolian hair (a) hangs straight; the more curly European hair (b) has an oval or elliptical section; the woolly African hair (c) is more flattened; while the frizzy Papuan hair (d) is a yet more extreme example of the flattened ribbon-like kind. Curly and woolly hair has a lop-sided growth from the root which gives the twist. Not only the colour and form of the hair, but its quantity, vary in different races. Thus the heads of the Bushmen are more scantily furnished with hair than ours, while among the Crow Indians it was common for the warrior’s coarse black hair to sweep on the ground behind him. The body-hair also is scanty in some races and plentiful in others. Thus the Ainos, the indigenes of Yeso, are a shaggy people, while the Japanese possessors of their island are comparatively hairless. So strong is the contrast, that the Japanese have invented a legend that in ancient times the Aino mothers suckled young bears, which gradually developed into men.

That certain races are constitutionally fit and others unfit for certain climates, is a fact which the English have but too good reason to know, when on the scorching plains of India they themselves become languid and sickly, while their children have soon to be removed to some cooler climate that they may not pine and die. It is well-known also that races are not affected alike by certain diseases. While in Equatorial Africa or the West Indies the coast-fever and yellow-fever are so fatal or injurious to the new-come Europeans, the negros and even mulattos are almost untouched by this scourge of the white nations. On the other hand, we English look upon measles as a trifling complaint, and hear with astonishment of its being carried into Fiji, and there, aggravated no doubt by improper treatment, sweeping away the natives by thousands. It is plain that nations moving into a new climate, if they are to flourish, must become adapted in body to the new state of life; thus in the rarefied air of the high Andes more respiration is required than in the plains, and in fact tribes living there have the chest and lungs developed to extraordinary size. Races, though capable of gradual acclimatization, must not change too suddenly the climate they are adapted to. With this adaptation to particular climates the complexion has much to do, fitting the negro for the tropics and the fair-white for the temperate zone; though, indeed, colour does not always vary with climate, as where in America the brown race extends through hot and cold regions alike. Fitness for a special climate, being matter of life or death to a race, must be reckoned among the chief of race-characters.

Travellers notice striking distinctions in the temper of races. There seems no difference of condition between the native Indian and the African negro in Brazil to make the brown man dull and sullen, while the black is overflowing with eagerness and gaiety. So, in Europe, the unlikeness between the melancholy Russian peasant and the vivacious Italian can hardly depend altogether on climate and food and government. There seems to be in mankind inbred temperament and inbred capacity of mind. History points the great lesson that some races have marched on in civilization while others have stood still or fallen back, and we should partly look for an explanation of this in differences of intellectual and moral powers between such tribes as the native Americans and Africans, and the Old World nations who overmatch and subdue them. In measuring the minds of the lower races, a good test is how far their children are able to take a civilized education. The account generally given by European teachers who have had the children of lower races in their schools is that, though these often learn as well as the white children up to about twelve years old, they then fall off, and are left behind by the children of the ruling race. This fits with what anatomy teaches of the less development of brain in the Australian and African than in the European. It agrees also with what the history of civilization teaches, that up to a certain point savages and barbarians are like what our ancestors were and our peasants still are, but from this common level the superior intellect of the progressive races has raised their nations to heights of culture. The white man, though now dominant over the world, must remember that intellectual progress has been by no means the monopoly of his race. At the dawn of history, the leaders of culture were the brown Egyptians, and the Babylonians, whose Akkadian is not connected with the language of white nations, while the yellow Chinese, whose Tatar affinity is evident in their hair and features, have been for four thousand years or more a civilized and literary nation. The dark-whites, Assyrians, Phœnicians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, did not start but carried on the forward movement of culture, while since then the fair-whites, as part of the population of France, Germany, and England, have taken their share not meanly though latest in the world’s progress.

After thus noticing some of the chief points of difference among races, it will be well to examine more closely what a race is. Single portraits of men and women can only in a general way represent the nation they belong to, for no two of its individuals are really alike, not even brothers. What is looked for in such a race-portrait is the general character belonging to the whole race. It is an often repeated observation of travellers that a European landing among some people unlike his own, such as Chinese or Mexican Indians, at first thinks them all alike. After days of careful observation he makes out their individual peculiarities, but at first his attention was occupied with the broad typical characters of the foreign race. It is just this broad type that the anthropologist desires to sketch and describe, and he selects as his examples such portraits of men and women as show it best. It is even possible to measure the type of a people. To give an idea of the working of this problem, let us suppose ourselves to be examining Scotchmen, and the first point to be settled how tall they are. Obviously there are some few as short as Lapps, and some as tall as Patagonians; these very short and tall men belong to the race, and yet are not its ordinary members. If, however, the whole population were measured and made to stand in order of height, there would be a crowd of men about five feet eight inches, but much fewer of either five feet four inches or six feet, and so on till the numbers decreased on either side to one or two giants, and one or two dwarfs. This is seen in Fig. 16, where each individual is represented by a dot, and the dots representing men of the mean or typical stature crowd into a mass. After looking at this, the reader will more easily understand Quetelet’s diagram, Fig. 17, where the heights or ordinates of the binomial curve show the numbers of men of each stature, decreasing both ways from the central five feet eight inches which is the stature of the mean or typical man. Here, in a total of near 2,600 men, there are 160 of five feet eight inches, but only about 150 of five feet seven inches or five feet nine inches, and so on, till not even ten men are found so short as five feet or so tall as six feet four inches. As the proverb says, “it takes all sorts to make a world,” so it thus appears that a race is a body of people comprising a regular set of variations, which centre round one representative type. In the same way a race or nation is estimated as to other characters, as where a mean or typical Englishman may be said to measure 36 inches round the chest, and weigh about 144 pounds. So it is possible to fix on the typical shade of complexion in a nation, such as the Zulu black-brown. The result of these plans is to show that the rough-and-ready method of the traveller is fairly accurate, when he chooses as his representative of a race the type of man and woman which he finds to exist more numerously than any other.

The people whom it is easiest to represent by single portraits are uncivilised tribes, in whose food and way of life there is little to cause difference between one man and another, and who have lived together and intermarried for many generations. Thus Fig. 18, taken from a photograph of a party of Caribs, is remarkable for the close likeness running through all. In such a nation the race-type is peculiarly easy to make out. It is by no means always thus easy to represent a whole population. To see how difficult it may be, one has only to look at an English crowd, with its endless diversity. But to get a view of the problem of human varieties, it is best to attend to the simplest cases first, looking at some uniform and well-marked race, and asking what in the course of ages may happen to it.

The first thing to be noticed is its power of lasting. Where a people lives on in its own district, without too much change in habits, or mixture with other nations, there seems no reason to expect its type to alter. The Egyptian monuments show good instances of this permanence. In Fig. 19, a is drawn from the head of a statue of Rameses, evidently a careful portrait, and dating from about 3,000 years ago, while b is an Egyptian of the present day, yet the ancient and modern are curiously alike. Indeed, the ancient Egyptian race, who built the Pyramids, and whose life of toil is pictured on the walls of the tombs, are with little change still represented by the fellahs of the villages, who carry on the old labour under new tax-gatherers. Thus, too, the Æthiopians on the early Egyptian bas-reliefs may have their counterparts picked out still among the White Nile tribes, while we recognise in the figures of Phœnician or Israelite captives the familiar Jewish profile of our own day. Thus there is proof that a race may keep its special characters plainly recognizable for over thirty centuries, or a hundred generations. And this permanence of type may more or less remain when the race migrates far from its early home, as when African negroes are carried into America, or Israelites naturalize themselves from Archangel to Singapore. Where marked change has taken place in the appearance of a nation, the cause of this change must be sought in intermarriage with foreigners, or altered conditions of life, or both.

The result of intermarriage or crossing of races is familiar to all English people in one of its most conspicuous examples, the cross between white and negro called mulatto (Spanish mulato, from mula, a mule). The mulatto complexion and hair are intermediate between those of the parents, and new intermediate grades of complexion appear in the children of white and mulatto, called quadroon or quarter-blood (Spanish cuarteron), and so on; on the other hand, the descendants of negro and mulatto, called sambo (Spanish zambo) return towards the full negro type. This intermediate character is the general nature of crossed races, but with more or less tendency to revert to one or other of the parent types. To illustrate this, Fig. 20 gives the portrait of a Malay mother and her half-caste daughters, the father being a Spaniard; here, while all the children show their mixed race, it is sometimes the European and sometimes the Malay cast of features that prevails. The effect of mixture is also traceable in the hair, as may often be well noticed in a mulatto’s crimped, curly locks, between the straighter European and the woolly African kind. The Cafusos of Brazil, a peculiar cross between the native tribes of the land and the imported negro slaves, are remarkable for their hair, which rises in a curly mass, forming a natural periwig which obliges the wearers to stoop low in passing through their hut doors. This is seen in the portrait of a Cafusa, Fig. 21, and seems easily accounted for by the long stiff hair of the native American having acquired in some degree the negro frizziness. The bodily temperament of mixed races also partakes of the parent-characters, as is seen in the mulatto who inherits from his negro ancestry the power of bearing a tropical climate, as well as freedom from yellow fever.

Not only does a mixed race arise wherever two races inhabit the same district, but within the last few centuries it is well known that a large fraction of the world’s population has actually come into existence by race-crossing. This is nowhere so evident as on the American continent, where since the Spanish conquest such districts as Mexico are largely peopled by the mestizo descendants of Spaniards and native Americans, while the importation of African slaves in the West Indies has given rise to a mulatto population. By taking into account such intercrossing of races, anthropologists have a reason to give for the endless shades of diversity among mankind, without attempting the hopeless task of classifying every little uncertain group of men into a special race. The water-carrier from Cairo, in Fig. 22, may serve as an example of the difficulty of making a systematic arrangement to set each man down to his precise race. This man speaks Arabic, and is a Moslem, but he is not an Arab proper, neither is he an Egyptian of the old kingdom, but the child of a land where the Nubian, Copt, Syrian, Bedouin, and many other peoples have mingled for ages, and in fact his ancestry may come out of three quarters of the globe. Among the natives of India, a variety of complexion and feature is found which cannot be classified exactly by race. But it must be remembered that several very distinct varieties of men have contributed to the population of the country, namely the dark-brown indigenes or hill-tribes, the yellow Mongolians who have crossed the frontiers from Tibet, and the fairer ancient Aryans or Indo-Europeans who poured in from the north-west; not to mention others, the mixture of these nations going on for ages has of course produced numberless crosses. So in Europe, taking the fair nations of the Baltic and the dark nations of the Mediterranean as two distinct races or varieties, their intercrossing may explain the infinite diversity of brown hair and intermediate complexion to be met with. If then it may be considered that man was already divided into a few great main races in remote antiquity, their intermarriage through ages since will go far to account for the innumerable slighter varieties which shade into one another.

It is not enough to look at a race of men as a mere body of people happening to have a common type or likeness. For the reason of their likeness is plain, and indeed our calling them a race means that we consider them a breed whose common nature is inherited from common ancestors. Now experience of the animal world shows that a race or breed, while capable of carrying on its likeness from generation to generation, is also capable of varying. In fact, the skilful cattle-breeder, by carefully choosing and pairing individuals which vary in a particular direction, can within a few years form a special breed of cattle or sheep. Without such direct interference of man, special races or breeds of animals form themselves under new conditions of climate and food, as in the familiar instances of the Shetland ponies, or the mustangs of the Mexican plains which have bred from the horses brought over by the Spaniards. It naturally suggests itself that the races of man may be thus accounted for as breeds, varied from one original stock. It may be strongly argued in this direction that not only do the bodily and mental varieties of mankind blend gradually into one another, but that even the most dissimilar races can intermarry in all directions, producing mixed or sub-races which, when left to themselves, continue their own kind. Advocates of the polygenist theory, that there are several distinct races of man, sprung from independent origins, have denied that certain races, such as the English and native Australians, produce fertile half-breeds. But the evidence tends more and more to establish crossing as possible between all races, which goes to prove that all the varieties of mankind are zoologically of one species. While this principle seems to rest on firm ground, it must be admitted that our knowledge of the manner and causes of race-variation among mankind is still very imperfect. The great races, black, brown, yellow, white, had already settled into their well-known characters before written record began, so that their formation is hidden far back in the præhistoric period. Nor are alterations of such amount known to have taken place in any people within the range of history. It has been plausibly argued that our rude primitive ancestors, being less able than their posterity to make themselves independent of climate by shelter and fire and stores of food, were more exposed to alter in body under the influence of the new climates they migrated into. Even in modern times, it seems possible to trace something of race-change going on under new conditions of life. Thus Dr. Beddoe’s measurements prove that in England the manufacturing town-life has given rise to a population an inch or two less in stature than their forefathers when they came in from their country villages. So in the Rocky Mountains there are clans of Snake Indians whose stunted forms and low features, due to generations of needy outcast life, mark them off from their better nourished kinsfolk in the plains. It is asserted that the pure negro in the United States has undergone a change in a few generations which has left him a shade lighter in complexion and altered his features, while the pure white in the same region has become less rosy, with darker and more glossy hair, more prominent cheek-bones and massive lower jaw. These are perhaps the best authenticated cases of race-change. There is great difficulty in watching a race undergoing variation, which is everywhere masked by the greater changes caused by new nations coming in to mingle and intermarry with the old. He who should argue from the Greek sculptures that the national type has changed since the age of Perikles, would be met with the answer that the remains of the old stock have long been inextricably blended with others. The points which have now been brought forward will suffice to show the uncertainty and difficulty of any attempt to trace exactly the origin and course of the races of man. Yet at the same time there is a ground-work to go upon in the fact that these races are not found spread indiscriminately over the earth’s surface, but certain races plainly belong to certain regions, seeming each to have taken shape under the influences of climate and soil in its proper district, where it flourished, and whence it spread far and wide, modifying itself and mingling with other races as it went. The following brief sketch may give an idea how the spreading and mixture of the great races may have taken place. It embodies well-considered views of eminent anatomists, especially Professors Huxley and Flower. Though such a scheme cannot be presented as proved and certain, it is desirable to clear and fix our ideas by understanding that man’s distribution over the earth did not take place by promiscuous scattering of tribes, but along great lines of movement whose regularity can be often discerned, where it cannot be precisely followed out.