CHAPTER V.

CAUSES OF THE DIFFERENCE IN FEATURES.

WE now come to a consideration of the difference in the features of the human family, and especially the great variety to be seen in the African race. From the grim worshippers of Odin in the woods of Germany, down to the present day, all uncivilized nations or tribes have more or less been addicted to the barbarous custom of disfiguring their persons.

Thus, among the North American Indians, the tribe known as the "flat heads," usually put their children's heads to press when but a few days old; and consequently, their name fitly represents their personal appearance. While exploring the valley of the Zambesi, Dr. Livingstone met with several tribes whose mode of life will well illustrate this point. He says:

"The women here are in the habit of piercing the upper lip and gradually enlarging the orifice until they can insert a hell. The lip then appears drawn out beyond the pendicular of the nose, and gives ly aspect. Sekwebu remarked,— to make their mouths like those of ed, it does appear as if they had the

idea that female beauty of lip had been attained by the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus alone. This custom prevails throughout the country of the Maravi, and no one could see it without confessing that fashion had never led women to a freak more mad.'

There is a tribe near the coast of Guinea, who consider a flat nose the paragon of beauty; and at early infancy, the child's nose is put in press, that it may not appear ugly when it arrives to years of maturity.

Many of the tribes in the interior of Africa mark the face, arms, and breasts; these, in some instances, are considered national identifications. Knocking out the teeth is a common practice, as will be seen by reference to Dr. Livingstone's travels. Living upon roots, as many of the more degraded tribes do, has its influence in moulding the features.

Re

There is a decided coincidence between the physical characteristics of the varieties of man, and their moral and social condition; and it also appears that their condition in civilized society produces marked modification in the intellectual qualities of the race. ligious superstition and the worship of idols have done much towards changing the features of the Negro from the original Ethiopian of Meroe, to the present inhabitants of the shores of the Zambesi.

The farther the human mind strays from the everliving God as a spirit, the nearer it approximates to the beasts; and as the mental controls the physical, so ignorance and brutality are depicted upon the counte

nance.

As the African by his fall has lost those qualities

"Livingstone's Travels," p. 366.

that adorn the visage of man, so the Anglo-Saxon, by his rise in the scale of humanity, has improved his features, enlarged his brain, and brightened in intellect.

Let us see how far history will bear us out in this assertion. We all acknowledge the Anglo-Saxon to be the highest type of civilization. But from whence sprang this refined, proud, haughty, and intellectual race? Go back a few centuries, and we find their ancestors described in the graphic touches of Cæsar and Tacitus. See them in the gloomy forests of Germany, sacrificing to their grim and gory idols; drinking the warm blood of their prisoners, quaffing libations from human skulls; infesting the shores of the Baltic for plunder and robbery; bringing home the reeking scalps of enemies as an offering to their king.

Macaulay says:-"When the Britons first became known to the Tyrian mariners, they were little superior to the Sandwich Islanders.'

Hume says:-"The Britons were a rude and barbarous people, divided into numerous claus, dressed in the skins of wild beasts: druidism was their religion,' and they were very superstitious." Cæsar writing home, said of the Britons,-"They are the most degraded people I ever conquered." Cicero advised his friend Atticus not to purchase slaves from Briton, "because," said he, "they cannot be taught music, and are the ugliest people I ever saw."

An illustration of the influence of circumstances upon the physical appearanc

still nearer our own

1641, and 1680

may be found rebellion in native Irish outh down into

the mountainous tract extending from the Barony of Flews eastward to the sea; on the other side of the kingdom the same race were expelled into Litrin, Sligo, and Mayo. Here they have been almost ever since, exposed to the worst effects of hunger and ignorance, the two great brutalizers of the human race.

The descendants of these exiles are now distinguished physically, from their kindred in Meath, and other districts, where they are not in a state of personal debasement. These people are remarkable for open, projecting mouths, prominent teeth, and exposed gums; their advancing cheek-bones and depressed noses carry barbarism on their very front.

In Sligo and northern Mayo, the consequences of two centuries of degradation and hardship exhibit themselves in the whole physical condition of the people. affecting not only the features, but the frame, and giving such an example of human degradation as to make it revolting.

They are only five feet two inches, upon an averagé, bow-legged, bandy-shanked, abortively-featured; the apparitions of Irish ugliness and Irish waut.*

Slavery is, after all, the great demoralizer of the human race. In addition to the marks of barbarism left upon the features of the African, he has the indelible. imprint of the task-master. Want of food, clothing, medical attention when sick, over-work, under the control of drunken and heartless drivers, the hand-cuffs and Negro whip, together with the other paraphernalia of the slave-code, has done much to distinguish the

from the rest of the human family. It must

Dublin University Magazine," Vol. IV., p. 653.

also be remembered that in Africa, the people, whether living in houses or in the open air, are oppressed with a hot climate, which causes them to sleep, more or less, with their mouths open. This fact alone is enough to account for the large, wide mouth and flat nose; common sense teaching us that with the open mouth, the features must fall.

As to the hair, which has also puzzled some scientific men, it is easily accounted for. It is well-known that heat is the great crisper of the hair, whether it be on men's heads or on the backs of animals. I remember well, when a boy, to have witnessed with considerable interest the preparations made on great occasions by the women, with regard to their hair.

The curls which had been carefully laid away for months, were taken out of the drawer, combed, oiled, rolled over the prepared paper, and put in the gentlyheated stove, there to remain until the wonted curl should be gained. When removed from the stove, taken off the paper rolls, and shaken out, the hair was fit to adorn the head of any lady in the land.

Now, the African's hair has been under the influence for many centuries, of the intense heat of his native clime, and in each generation is still more curly, till we find as many grades of hair as we do of color, from the straight silken strands of the Malay, to the wool of the Guinea Negro. Custom, air, food, and the general habits of the people, spread over the great area of the African continent, aid much in producing the vares of hair so often met with in the descendantee country of the Nile.

recent reports of Dr. Livingstone, he dee physical appearance of a tribe which he met,