Of a distinct origin are the numerous natives that inhabit the coasts of the Mediterranean, between Egypt and the western ocean, as well as the extensive territories from Barbary to Mount Atlas. The Arabs, Vandals, Spaniards, and, more anciently, the Romans and the Egyptians, peopled these regions with men very different from each other. The inhabitants of the mountains of Arras, for example, have an aspect and complexion very different from those of their neighbours; their skin, far from being tawny, is fair and ruddy; and their hair is of a deep yellow, while that of the adjacent nations is black; circumstances which have led Dr. Shaw to suppose them the descendants of the Vandals, who, on their expulsion, might have settled in some parts of these mountains.
The women of the kingdom of Tripoli, though so near to those of Egypt, have yet no resemblance to them. The former are tall; and they even consider length of stature as an essential article of beauty. Like the Arabian women they mark their cheeks and chin; and as in Turkey they so highly esteem red hair, they even paint that of their children with vermilion.
In general the Moorish women affect to wear their hair down to their heels, and those whose hair is less in length, use false locks; and they all adorn their tresses with ribbons. The hair of the eye-lids they tinge with the dust of black lead; and the dark colour which this gives to the eyes they esteem a singular beauty. In this circumstance, indeed they differ not from the women of ancient Greece and Rome.
Most part of the Moorish women would pass for handsome even in Europe. The skin of their children is exceedingly fair and delicate; and though the boys, by being exposed to the sun, soon grow swarthy, yet the girls, who are kept more at home, retain their beauty till the age of 30, when they commonly cease to have children. At this premature sterility they have less cause to repine, as they are often mothers at the age of 11, and grandmothers at that of 22; and living as long as European women, they commonly see several generations.
In reading Marmol’s description of these different nations, it is evident that the inhabitants of the mountains of Barbary are fair, and those of the sea-coasts and plains are very brown and tawny. He says expressly, that the inhabitants of Capex, a city of Tunis, are poor people exceedingly black; that those who dwell on the river Dara, in the kingdom of Morocco, are very tawny; and that the inhabitants of Zarhou, and of the mountains of Fez, on the side of Mount Atlas, are white. He adds, that the latter are so little affected by cold, that even in frost and snow their dress is very slight; and through the whole year they go with the head uncovered. The Numidians, he says, are rather tawny than black; the women are tolerably fair, and even lusty, though the men are meagre; but that the inhabitants of Guaden, at the extremity of Numidia, and on the frontiers of Senegal, are rather black that tawny; that, on the other hand, in the province of Dara, the women are beautiful and fresh-coloured; and that throughout the whole regions negro-slaves of both sexes are numerous.
The difference then is not great among the nations that dwell between the 20th, 30th, or 35th degree north latitude, in the old continent; that is, from the Mogul empire to Barbary, and even from the Ganges to the western coasts of Morocco, if we except the varieties occasioned by the mixture with more northern nations, by which some of these vast countries have been conquered and peopled. In this territory, the extent of which is not less than 2000 leagues, the inhabitants are in general brown and tawny, yet well made, and tolerably handsome.
If we next examine those who live in climates more temperate we shall find that the people northward of Mogul and Persia, the Armenians, Turks, Georgians, Mingrelians Circassians, Greeks, and the Europeans at large, are the most fair and handsome in the world; and that however remote Cashmire may be from Spain, or Circassia from France, yet situated nearly at the same distance from the equator, the resemblance between the natives is singularly striking.
The people of Cashmire, says Bernier, are celebrated for beauty; they are as well made as the Europeans; they have nothing of the Tartar visages; nor have they that flat nose, and those pig’s eyes we met with among their neighbours. The women are particularly handsome; and it is very common for strangers, on coming to the court of Mogul, to provide themselves with wives from Cashmire, in order to have children that may pass for true Moguls.
The natives of Georgia are of a more refined extraction than those of Cashmire. In the whole of that country we find not an ugly face; and the women enjoy from Nature graces superior to those of any other race. They are tall and well-shaped; their waist is exceedingly delicate, and their faces are truly charming. The men are also very handsome; and, from their natural ingenuity, were it not counteracted by a wretched education, which renders them ignorant and vicious, they might successfully cultivate the arts and sciences. In no country whatever, perhaps, are libertinism and drunkenness carried to so great a pitch as in Georgia. Chardin says, that even the clergy are exceedingly addicted to wine; that, in the character of slaves, they retain a number of concubines, and that at this custom, as being general and even authorised, no person takes offence. He adds, that the prefect of the Capuchins assured him, that the Patriarch of Georgia publicly declares, that he who, at the grand festivals, as those of Easter and Christmas, does not get drunk, is unworthy to be called a Christian, and ought to be excommunicated. With all their vices the Georgians are a civil and humane people, little subject to passion, but irreconcileable enemies when provoked, and have conceived an antipathy.