Dr. Shaw, the traveller from whom we quoted, gives a still more
decided testimony against the theory of climate, in speaking of the
Moorish women. His words are: ‘The greatest part of the Moorish
women would be reckoned beauties even in Great Britain, as their
children certainly have the fairest complexion of any nation whatever.
The hoys,: indeed, by wearing only the tiara, are exposed so much to
the sun that they soon acquire the swarthiness of the Arab ;• hut the
girls, keeping more; at hcrme, preserve their beauty till they are
thirty, at which time they are usually past child-hearing.’—(Travels
in Barbary and the Levant, fol. 1738, p. 1201)4'. Here we perceive the
true effects of climate on the fair races: a temporary darkening of
the parts exposed to the sun, the children of people so darkened
born perfectly fair!, Who can tell the number of ages that the
Moors have inhabited the north of Africa ? Who can say that their
present region is not their original country ? And yet here they are
still, a perfectly fair race.
“ Southern Africa also presents us with many striking illustrations
of the fallacy: of the theory of climate. We shall content ourselves
with citing two of the most remarkable, viz., those presented by the
physical peculiarities of the Hottentots and Bosjesmans. These two
races have been considered as one; but only by those who believe
in the great modifying power of circumstances. - They are evidently
distinct. The: Bosjesmans are pigmies; the Hottentots, where pure,
tall and large. Persons of intermediate stature are, of course, met
with; because, two races so much alike in most respects, residing
near each other, must necessarily have intermarried in the course of
ages; hut there is no conceivable; reason why, except as distinct
races, the one should be active, restless,- comparatively brave, and
of a stature seldom exceeding four feet: nine inches, while the-other
is tall, large, timid, and exceedingly sluggish. In most other respects
their organization is similar; and they differ from all other portions
of mankind in the nature of the hair and in-two remarkable1 pe'cu-;
liarities in the female structure. They are in the midst of races
widely differing from them,—negroes on the one hand and Oaffres
on the other ; : both black, while the Hottentots and Bosjesmans are
simply of a light yellowish brown. How can these facts be accounted
for except as differences of race ?”
A view of some curious analogies, a propos of the Gaboon river-
land, may here be given.
The chart (further on), illustrative of the distribution of the simiadse
in their relation to that of some inferior types of man, with the text
accompanying, suggests a few hints to ethnographers. Among them
is the fact, that the highest living species of Monkeys occupy precisely
those zoological provinces where flourish the lowest races of
mankind.
It is well known, that all negroes found in Algeria (where their
lives are also curtailed, as in Egypt, by an uncongenial climate), are
brought over the Sahara, by the inland caravan-trade, chiefly from
the neighborhood of the Niger and Senegal rivers. This shall be
made evident in elucidating the Saharran fauna of the African realm
on our Tableau. From the Senegal, Gambian, Joliba, and other
streams, as Well as from around Lake Tchad and its affluents, there
is, and has been, .ever since the Arabian camel was introduced, about
the 1st century b. o.,413 a ceaseless flow of nigritian captives to the
413 Desmoulins, op. cit., Mémoire sur la Patrie du Chameau à une Bosse, et sur l’époque de
son introduction en Afrique; pp. 359-88:— I am acquainted with the objections raised by
Quatremère (Mémoires de VAcad. Roy. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, XV., Paris, 18,45; pp.
3 93_ 6 ._ ); but Egyptological reasons, by him disregarded, lead me to deem them incon-
elusive.
A word here about. “ Camels.” Mention was made (Types of Mankind, p. 729, note 610),
of a MS. memoir of my own, entitled “ Remarks on the introduction of Camels and Dromedaries,
for Army-Transportation, Carriage of Mails, and Military Field-seryice, into the
States and Territories lying smith and west of the Mississippi, between the Atlantic and
Pacific coasts—presented to the Wàr-Department, Washington, Oct. 1851 and dedioated
to the H on. J e f f . Davis, then U. S. Senator,—who had previously, at my instigation (Mat.
Intelligencer, Wash., D. C., 27 March, 1851), introducèd a camel-bill into Congress.
It is known to everybody in this country that the United States Transport “ Supply” has
already made two trips, one to Alexandria, and the other to Smyrna, and brought over to
Texas some 80 of these animals, in good condition. The undertaking could not fail to be
successful,—1st, because the ship was commanded by my old friend (welcomed “ chez moi”
at Cairo as far back as 1835), L ieu t . David P obter, U. S. N. ¡¿-and 2d, because the War
Department has merely carried out (with but one solitary exception) every detail—down to the
most minute--of my “ Remarks” aforesaid, in regard to the importation of these animals.
Following the maxim—“je reprends ma propriété oh je la trouve”—I claim here the credit
of chalking out the lines upon which these Camels reached America; confident that if (and
I hardly think such contingency possible after the instruction the party in charge had from
myself), there should be any failure in developing the unbounded utility of these quadrupeds
after their landing, such eventuality can proceed solely through United States’ official mis-
management.
Meanwhile, I presume my above-mentioned MS. has become mislaid at the War Department;
because I see that M b . M a b s h , in his very nice little work (Boston, 1856), on the
“ Camel,” whilst gratefully acknowledging the various documents on the subject lent him
by the War Department, with honorable mention of the Authors of each paper, has nowhere
alluded, either to myself (who planned tjie whole affair for them in writing, 1851-6) or to
my said “ Remarks.’”
Now, whether my MS. (bound in red morocco, too) be or be not in existence at the War
Department, it so happens that, knowing perfectly well the sort of principles current at
Washington — District Columbia,— I had taken 3 precautions to ensure preservation of my
ideas therein ; 1st, by having a fac-simile copy made by the hands of a third party before
transmitting the original from Pittsburg, Pa., to the Department; 2d, by securing sufficient
collateral evidence of my.connection with that Institution from first to last; and'3d, by
preserving, in a patent Salamander safe, my MS. copy, with every scrap o f correspondence