Palafox assures us that the Chinese are more fair than the oriental Tartars; that they have also less beards, but that in every other respect their visages are nearly the same. It is very uncommon, he says, to see blue eyes either in China or in the Philippine islands; and when seen, it is in Europeans, or in those of European parents.
Inigo de Biervillas asserts, that the women of China are better made than the men. Of the latter, he says, their visages are large and complexions rather yellow; their noses broad, and generally compressed, and their bodies are of a thickness greatly resembling that of a Hollander. The women, on the contrary, though they are generally rather fat than otherwise, are however of a free and easy shape; their complexion and skin are admirable; and their eyes are incomparably fine; but from the great pains taken to compress it in their infancy, there are few to be seen of whose nose the shape is even tolerable.
All the Dutch travellers allow that the Chinese have in general broad faces, small eyes, flat noses, and hardly any beard; that the natives of Canton, and the whole of the southern coast, are as tawny as the inhabitants of Fez, in Africa, but that those of the interior provinces are mostly fair. Now if we compare the descriptions we have already given, from the above authors, of the Chinese and Tartars, hardly will a doubt remain that, although they differ a little in stature and countenance, they originate from one stock, and that the points in which they differ proceed entirely either from the climate, or the mixture of races. Chardin says, “the size of the little Tartars is commonly smaller than the Europeans by four inches, and they are thicker in the same proportion. Their complexion is of the colour of copper; their faces are flat, large, and square; their noses compressed, and their eyes are little. Now these are exactly the features of the inhabitants of China; for I have found, after the most minute investigation, that there is the same conformation of face and body throughout the nations to the east and north of the Caspian Sea, and to the east of the peninsula of Malacca. From this circumstance I was inclined to believe that, however different they may appear either in their complexion or manners, they proceed from one stock, for difference of colour depends entirely upon the quality of the climate and the food; and difference in manners is determined by the nature of the soil, and by the greater or less degree of opulence.”
Father Parennin, who lived long in China, and whose observations are so accurate and so minute, tells us, that the western neighbours of the Chinese, from Thibet northward to Chamo, differ from the Chinese in manners, language, physiognomy, and external conformation; that they are a people rude, ignorant, and slothful, charges that cannot be laid to the Chinese; and that when any of these Tartars go to Pekin, and the Chinese are asked the reason of this difference, they answer, that it proceeds from the water and the soil; in other words, that it is the nature of the country which produces this change upon the bodies and dispositions of the inhabitants. He adds, that this remark seems to be more applicable with respect to China than to any other country he ever saw; that following the emperor northward into Tartary, to the latitude of 48, he found Chinese from Nanquin who had settled there, whose children had become actual Mongous, being bow-legged, with their heads sunk into their shoulders, and a countenance which created disgust.
So strongly do the Japanese resemble the Chinese, that we can hardly scruple to rank them in the same class. Living in a more southern climate they are more yellow or more brown. In general their stature is short, their face, as well as nose, broad and flat, their eyes small, their hair black, and their beard little more than perceptible. They are haughty, fond of war, full of dexterity and vigour, civil and obliging, smooth-tongued, and courteous, but fickle and vain. With astonishing patience they sustain hunger, thirst, cold, heat, fatigue, and all the other hardships of life. Their ceremonies, or rather grimaces, in eating, are numerous and uncouth. They are laborious skilful artificers, and, in a word, their dispositions, manners, and customs are the same as the Chinese.
One singular custom which they have in common, is, so to contract the feet of the women, that they are hardly able to support themselves. Some travellers mention, that in China, when a girl has passed her third year, they bend the foot in such a manner that the toes are made to come under the sole; that they apply to it a strong water, which burns away the flesh; and then they wrap them up in a number of bandages. They add, that the women feel the pain of this operation all their lives; that they walk with great difficulty; and that their gait is to the last degree ungraceful. Other travellers say that they only compress the foot with so much violence as to prevent its growth; but they unanimously allow, that every woman of condition, and even every handsome woman must have a foot small enough to enter with ease the slipper of a child of six years old.
The Japanese, and the Chinese, we may therefore conclude, proceed from the same stock, that for their civilization we must recur to a very distant part of antiquity, and that they differ more from the Tartars in their manners than their figure. To this civilization, the excellence of the soil, the mildness of the climate, and their vicinity to the sea, have perhaps greatly contributed; while the Tartars, from their inland situation, and being separated from other nations by high mountains, have remained wanderers over their vast deserts, which are situated under a climate to the last degree inclement, especially towards the north. The country of Jesso, which is to the north of Japan, and of which, from its situation, the climate might be expected to be temperate, is however cold, barren, and mountainous, and its inhabitants are altogether different from those of China and Japan. They are ignorant and brutal, without manners, and without arts. Their bodies are short and thick; their hair long, their eyes black, their foreheads flat; and their complexions, though yellow, are rather less so than that of the Japanese. Over their bodies, and even the face, they have much hair; they live like savages, and their food consists of the oily parts of whales and other fishes. They are to the last degree indolent and slovenly; their children go almost naked; nor have their women devised any external ornament beyond that of painting their eye-brows and lips of a blue colour. The sole occupation and pleasure of the men are hunting and fishing; and though they have some customs similar to the Japanese, as that of quavering when they sing, yet in general they bear a much more striking resemblance to the northern Tartars, or to the Samoiedes, than to the Japanese.
In examining nations adjacent to China, on the south and west, we find that the Cochin-Chinese, who inhabit a mountainous region to the southward of China, are more tawny and more ugly than the Chinese; and that the Tonquinese, whose country is more fertile, and whose climate is more mild, are in every respect proportionally more handsome.
According to Dampier, the Tonquinese are of a middling height; and though their complexion is tawny, their skin is so delicate and smooth, that the smallest change is perceptible in their countenance, when they happen either to grow pale, or to redden; a circumstance in which they differ from all other Indians. In common their visage is flat and oval; their nose and lips are thick; and they use every art, in order to render their teeth as black as possible.