In the Delta of the Niger we find the best opportunity for contrasting the negro with the European, the black man with the white; inasmuch as it is in the Delta of the Niger where the points wherein the African differs from the rest of the world are found in the most marked form. The climate is tropical (well nigh equatorial), the soil swampy and alluvial, the atmosphere surcharged with damp warm vapours. Under these conditions the negro is found in his most extreme form. Let us ask what it is. In the true and typical negro (the negro from whom the current notions of the black man are derived), over and above the colour of the skin, there is a woolly, cottony, or frizzy head of hair, there is a yellow tinge over the white of the eye (the sclerotica), and there are thick lips, with a projecting mouth—a muzzle rather than a mouth, in its more exaggerated form. This is because the teeth are set obliquely, i. e. they slant somewhat forward. Then there is the forehead, which is described as being narrow, and retiring, and receding, or sloping backwards. There is some exaggeration in this, though upon the whole the negro character is well marked; the hair, the skin, and the lips, being the chief points. To the notice of these it should be added that the nose is generally flat and depressed, with the nostrils thrown out, so to say, sideways. Rarely, very rarely indeed, is the bridge sufficiently curved to give what is called the Roman or aquiline nose; whilst it is almost as rare to find a Grecian one, i. e. one where the nasal bones are raised but straight. Then there is the proportion which the different parts of the face bear to each other. A [34]German writer of eminence as a naturalist, has lately been taking measurements from amongst the negroes of Brazil, and states that instead of the parts between the chin and nose (the nasal portion of the face), and the forehead forming a third, each, of the whole physiognomy, the forehead forms less than a third, the nasal part more than the forehead, and the chin, &c. more than the nasal; in other words, the lower we go the greater the mass of the several parts of the face, and the nearer we approach the brain, the smaller. I can neither verify nor deny this statement.
[34] Burmeister—The Black Man, a pamphlet.
Other points, more or less characteristic, real or supposed, are to be found in the relations of the limbs to the trunk—the former being longer in proportion to the latter than is usual with Europeans.
It is more important, however, to investigate the amount of difference indicated by the difference of colour, and to do this we must look to the structure of the skin. The structure of the negro’s skin differs from that of the white man in degree only, the one containing much, the other but little colouring matter; this colouring matter being deposited in a particular layer, called the mucous layer, the stratum Malpighii, or the rete mucosum. The character of this mucous layer, or rete mucosum, is well given in the forthcoming plates, which, along with the description, is taken from [35]Kölliker’s Manual. It differs in some degree from the one which occurs in the ordinary works on Ethnology.
[35] Translated by Messrs. Busk and Huxley for the Sydenham Society.
The external integument of all men alike consists of the cutis or true skin, and the epidermis, or scarf-skin, the latter consisting of cells only, the former of cells, vessels and nerves.
As far as the cutis is concerned, the blackest and whitest of mankind are alike; so that it is in the scarf-skin or epidermis that the difference lies. This consists of two layers, an external and an internal.
The internal layer is the rete mucosum. It lies immediately upon the true skin, and consists solely and wholly of cells, being equally destitute of vessels and nerves. Here begin the first discrepancies in the opinion of writers. Some deny that it belongs to the epidermis, looking upon it as a separate substantive tissue, neither skin nor scarf-skin, but intermediate to the two. Others find it only in the coloured families of mankind. It occurs, however, universally; being of a yellowish-white colour in Europeans, and dark brown or black in negroes, Indians, and the so-called dark races. Hence, the real difference is not in the existence of an additional tissue, but in a greater amount of colouring matter. Similar in respect to the two layers of their cutis, similar in respect to the two layers of their epidermis, the black man and the white differ in the extent to which the second layer of the scarf-skin is charged with a black deposit.
