The Ingrians and Carelians, who inhabit the northern provinces of Muscovy, and are the original natives of the country round Petersburgh, are men of vigour and robust constitutions. Their complexion is generally fair; they resemble the Finlanders, and speak the same language, which has no affinity to that of any other European nation.
By this historical description of all the different inhabitants of Europe and Asia, it appears that the variation in their colour depends greatly, though not entirely, on the climates. There are many other causes, by which not only the colour, but even the form and features may be influenced; and among the principal may be reckoned the nature of the food, and the manners, or mode of living. A civilized people, who enjoy a life of ease and tranquillity, and who, by the superintendance of a well regulated government, are protected from the fear and oppression of misery, will, from these reasons alone, be more handsome and vigorous than those of a savage and careless nation, of which each individual, deriving no assistance from society, is obliged to provide for his own subsistence, to sustain alternately the excesses of hunger and the effects of unwholesome food; to be alternately exhausted with labour and lassitude; and to undergo the rigours of a severe climate, without being able to shelter himself from them; to act, in a word, more frequently like an animal than a man. In the supposition that two nations, thus differently circumstanced, were even to live in the same climate, there can be no doubt but that the savage people would be more ugly, tawny, diminutive, and more wrinkled, than those enjoying civilized society. Should the former possess any advantage, it would consist in the superior strength, or rather hardiness of the body. It might likewise happen that among the savage people there would be fewer instances of lameness or bodily deformities; for in a civilized state, where one individual contributes to the support of another, where the strong has no power over the weak, where the qualities of the body are less esteemed than those of the mind, men thus defective live and even multiply; but among a savage people, as each individual subsists and defends himself merely by his corporal strength and address, those who are unhappily born weak and defective, or who become sick or disabled, soon cease to form a part of their number.
We must then admit of three causes as jointly productive of the varieties which we have remarked in the different nations of the earth. First, the influence of the climate; secondly, the food; and thirdly, the manners; the two last having great dependence on the former. But before we lay down the reasons on which this opinion is founded, it is necessary to describe the people of Africa and America in the same manner as we have those of Europe and Asia.
The nations of the whole northern part of Africa, from the Mediterranean to the Tropic, we have already mentioned. All those beyond the Tropic, from the Red Sea to the Ocean, an extent of 100 or 150 leagues, are of the Moorish species, though so tawny that they appear almost black. The women are rather fairer than the men, and tolerably handsome. Among these Moors there is a vast number of mulattoes, who are of a black still more deep, their mothers being negro women, whom the Moors purchase, and by whom they have a number of children.
Beyond this territory, in the 17th or 18th degree of north latitude, we find the negroes of Senegal and Nubia, both on the coast of the western ocean and that of the Red Sea; and after them all the other nations of Africa, from the 18th degree north to the 18th degree south latitude, are perfectly black, the Ethiopians or Abyssinians excepted. The portion of the globe by Nature allotted to this race of men, therefore, contains an extent of ground, parallel to the equator, of about 900 leagues in breadth, and considerably more in length, especially northward of the equinoctial line. Beyond the 18th or 20th degree of south latitude the natives are no longer negroes, as will appear when we come to speak of the Caffres and Hottentots.
By confounding the Ethiopians with their neighbours the Nubians, who are nevertheless of a different race, we have been long in an error with respect to their colour and features. Marmol says, the Ethiopians are absolutely black, that they have large faces and flat noses, and in this description the Dutch travellers agree. The truth, however, is, that they differ from the Nubians both in colour and features. The skin of the Ethiopians is brown or olive-coloured, like that of the southern Arabs, from whom probably they derive their origin. They are tall, have regular features, strongly marked; their eyes are large and beautiful; their noses well proportioned; their lips thin, and their teeth white. The Nubians, on the contrary, have flat noses, thick and prominent lips, and their faces exceedingly black. These Nubians, as well as the Barberins, their western neighbours, are a species of negroes not unlike those of Senegal.
The Ethiopians are a people between barbarism and civilization. Their garments are of cotton or silk. Their houses are low, and of a bad construction; their lands are wretchedly neglected, owing to their nobles, who despise, maltreat, and plunder the citizens and common people. Each of these classes live separate from the other, and have their own villages or hamlets. Unprovided with salt, they purchase it for its weight in gold. So fond are they of raw meat that, at their feasts, the second course, which they consider as the most delicate, consists of flesh entirely so. Though they have vines they make no wine; and their usual beverage is a sour composition made with tamarinds. They use horses for travelling, and mules for carrying their merchandize. Of the arts or sciences they have little knowledge; their language is without rules; and their manner of writing, though their characters are more beautiful than those of the Arabians, is so imperfect, that, to write an epistle, they require several days. Their mode of salutation is something whimsical. Each takes the right hand of the other, and carries it to his mouth; this done, the saluter takes off the scarf of the person saluted, and fastens it round his own body, by which the latter is left half naked, few of the Ethiopians wearing any thing more than this scarf and a pair of cotton drawers.
In Admiral Drake’s voyage round the world, he mentions a fact, which, however, extraordinary, appears not incredible. He says that on the frontiers of the deserts of Ethiopia there is a people called the Acridophagi, or Locust-eaters, who are black, meagre, exceedingly nimble, and very small. In the spring, by certain hot and westerly winds, an infinite number of locusts are blown into that country, on which, as they are unprovided with cattle or with fish, they are reduced to the necessity of subsisting. After collecting them in large quantities they salt them, and keep them for food throughout the year. This wretched nourishment produces singular effects: they hardly live to the age of 40, and when they approach that age winged insects engender under their skin, which at first creates a violent itching, and shortly multiply so prodigiously, that their whole flesh swarms with them. They begin by eating through the belly, then the breast, and continue their ravages till they eat all the flesh from the bones. Thus, by devouring insects are these men devoured by them in turn. Were this fact well authenticated it would afford a large field for reflection.