Seventhly, Beyond this is the country of copper-coloured
and red people, who, in Kafirland, are the majority, while in
intertropical Africa there are but few such tribes, and those
in countries of mountainous elevation.
Lastly,, Towards the Cape are the tawny Hottentots,
scarcely darker than the Mongoles, whom they resemble in
many other particulars besides colour.
It has long been well known, that as travellers ascend
mountains, in whatever region, they find the vegetation at
every successive level altering its character, and assuming a
more northern aspect, thus indicating that the state of the
atmosphere, temperature, and physical agencies in general,
assimilate as we approach alpine regions, to the peculiari-
ties locally connected with high latitudes. If, therefore, complexion
and other bodily qualities belonging to races of men
depend upon climate and external conditions, we should expect
to find them varying in reference to elevation of surface,
and if they should be found actually to undergo such variations,
this will be a strong argument that these external
characters do, in fact, depend upon local conditions. Now, if
we inquire respecting the physical characters of the tribes
inhabiting high tracts within either of the regions 'tfcbove
marked out, we shall find that they Coincide with those which
prevail in the level or low parts of more northern tracts. The
Swiss, in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy,
have sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself
to the traveller who descends into the Milanese, where the
peasants have black hair and eyes, with strongly marked
Italian and almost Oriental features. In the higher parts of
the Biscayan country, instead of the swarthy complexion'
and black hair of the Castilians, the natives have a fair complexion
with light-blue eyes and flaxen or auburn hair.* And
in Atlantica, while the Berbers of the plains are of brown
complexion with black hair, we have seen that the Shftluh
mountaineers are fair, and that the inhabitants of the high
* I have been assured of this fact by Col. Napier. The Basques of the high
tracts approaching the Pyrenees, as he informs me, are a people of strikingly different
aspect from the inhabitants of the low parts around, whether Spaniards or Biscayans.
They are finely made, tall men, with aquiline doses, fair complexion, &c.
tracts of Mons Aura&ius are completely xanthous, having red
or yellow hair and blue.-eyes, which fancifully, and without
the shadow of any proof,they haye been conjectured to have
derived from. the Vandal troops, pf Genseric.
Even in the inteijfcropical region, high elevations of surface,
as they produce,a. coolerp^mate^seem to occasion the appearance
of light complexions. In the, high parts of Senegambia,
which front thee Atlantic* and. are coofed,, by winds from the
Western Ocean, where, in-faqtythe temperature is known to
be moderate and even coo^af times, the light-copper-eoloured
Fulahs are found surrounded op every side byNegro nations inhabiting
lower districts.^,aud nearly in the same paral|||| but at
the. opposite,,side of Africa, are^hhp^high plains of Enarea and
Kaffa, whe^the inhabitants are saidio be fairer than the natives
of southern,Europe^.The Galla and the Abyssiniaus themselves
are, in proportion to the,elgyatipn ofthe.cpuntry inhabited
by them; fairer than the natiy^qf.loW)CO,|intries and |jpt an
exception should be taken to a comparison of ,sjraight-haired
races with woolly Negroes or ^h'ungalla, they, bear same
comparison with the Danakil, Hazorta, .apd the. Bishari
tribes, resembling them in their hair and features, who inhabit
the low tracts between the mountains of .Tigresand the shores
of the Red Sea, and who are equally or nearly as black ap;
Negroes.
We may find occasion to observe that an equally decided
relation exists betweenlocal conditions and. the ^existence of
other characters of human races in Africa. Those,^pps who
have the NegrO character in ane.^agg.ejFatgd degree, and whp
may be said to approach to deformity < hi persop—the ugliest
blacks with-depressed, foreheads,, flat noses, choked^pgg^-arp
in many instances inhabitants;, of low bounties,- often of
swampy tracts near the sga-poast, whpvpjpany of them,|as. the
Papels, have-scarcely any ..pthepmeans. of ,subsistgnc(e than
«feell-fiah,. fau4.4^e.:'gw»4fit^al^|^,of? g p ^ a*- In many
places similar, Negro tribes, occupy thiek,,forests in the hollows
beneath high chains of mpuntaips, the summits of which
are inhabited by Abyssinian iopfari races.. The high
iable-lands of Africa, are chiefly,- as far as'they are known,
VOL. ii. - ‘ z