CHAPTER III.

RACES OF MANKIND.

Differences of Race, 56-Stature and Proportions, 56-Skull, 60— Features, 62-Colour, 66–Hair, 71-Constitution, 73— Temperament, 74-Type; of Races, 75-Permanence, 8-Mixture, 80Variation, 84-Races of Mankind classified, 87.

IN the first chapter something has been already said as to the striking distinctions between the various races of man, seen in looking closely at the African negro, the Coolie of India, and the Chinese. Even among Europeans, the broad contrast between the fair Dane and the dark Genoese is recognised by all. Some further comparison has now to be made of the special differences between race and race, though the reader must understand that, without proper anatomical examination, such comparison can only be slight and imperfect. Anthropology finds race-differences most clearly in stature and proportions of limbs, conformation of the skull and the brain within, characters of features, skin, eyes, and hair, peculiarities of constitution, and mental and moral temperament.

In comparing races as to their stature, we concern ourselves not with the tallest or shortest men of each tribe, but with the ordinary or average-sized men who may be taken as fair representatives of their whole tribe. The difference of

general stature is well shown where a tall and a short people come together in one district. Thus in Australia the average English colonist of, ft. 8 in. looks clear over the heads of the 5 ft. 4 in. Chinese labourers. Still more in Sweden does the Swede of 5 ft. 7 in. tower over the stunted Lapps, whose average measure is not much over 5 ft. Among the tallest of mankind are the Patagonians, who seemed a race of giants to the Europeans who first watched them striding along their cliffs draped in their skin cloaks; it was even declared that the heads of Magalhaers' men hardly reached the waist of the first Patagonian they met. Modern travellers find, on measuring them, that they really often reach 6 ft. 4in., their mean height being about 5 ft. 11 in.-three or four inches taller than average Englishmen. The shortest of mankind are the Bushmen and related tribes in South Africa, with an average height not far exceeding 4 ft. 6 in. A fair contrast between the tallest and shortest races of mankind may be seen in Fig. 8, where a Patagonian is drawn side by side with a Bushman, whose head only reaches to his breast. Thus the tallest race of man is less than one-fourth higher than the shortest, a fact which seems surprising to those not used to measurements. Struck by the effect of such difference of stature one is apt to form an exaggerated notion of its amount, which is really small compared with the disproportion in size between various breeds of other species of animals, as the toy pug and the mastiff, or the Shetland pony and the dray-horse. In general, the stature of the women of any race may be taken as about one-sixteenth less than that of the men. Thus in England a man of 5ft. 8in. and a woman of 5ft. 4 in. look an ordinary well-matched couple,

Not only the stature, but the proportions of the body. differ in men of various races. Care must be taken not to

confuse real race-differences with the alterations made by the individual's early training or habit of life, such as the bowlegs of grooms, and the still more crooked legs of the Indians of British Columbia, who get them misshaped by continually sitting cramped up in their canoes. A man's

measure round the chest depends a good deal on his way of life, as do also the lengths of arm and leg, which are not even the same in soldiers and sailors. But there are certain distinctions which are inherited, and mark different races. Thus there are long-limbed and short-limbed tribes of

mankind. The African negro is remarkable for length of arm and leg, the Aymara Indian of Peru for shortness. Supposing an ordinary Englishman to be altered to the build of a negro, he would want 2 in. more in the arm and I in. more in the leg, while to bring him to the proportions of an Aymara his arm would have to be shortened in. and his leg 1 in. from their present lengths. An instructive way of noticing these differences is to look back to the skeletons of apes and man (Fig. 5). In an upright position and reaching down with the middle finger, the gibbon can touch its foot, the orang its ankle, the chimpanzee its knee, while man only reaches partly down his thigh. Here, however, there seems to be a real distinction among the races of man. Negro soldiers standing at drill bring .he middle finger-tip an inch or two nearer the knee than white men can do, and some have been even known to touch the knee-pan. Such differences, however, are less remarkable than the general correspondence in bodily proportions of a model of strength and beauty, to whatever race he may belong. Even good judges have been led to forget the niceties of race-type and to treat the form of the athlete as everywhere one and the same. Thus Benjamin West, the American painter, when he came to Rome and saw the Belvedere Apollo, exclaimed, "It is a young Mohawk warrior!" Much the same has been said of the proportions of Zulu athletes. Yet if fairly-chosen photographs of Kafirs be compared with a classic model such as the Apollo, it will be noticed that the trunk of the African has a somewhat wall-sided straightness, wanting in the inward slope which gives fineness to the waist, and in the expansion below which gives breadth across the hips, these being two of the most noticeable points in the classic model which our painters recognise as an ideal of manly beauty. By this

kind of comparison much may be done in distinguishing standard types of races. Yet, while acknowledging the reality of such varieties in the build of men of different race, we have again to remark how slight they are compared with the variation in the limbs of different breeds of lower animals.

In comparing races, one of the first questions that occurs is whether people who differ so much intellectually as savage tribes and civilized nations, show any corresponding difference in their brain. There is, in fact, a considerable difference. The most usual way of ascertaining the quantity of brain is to measure the capacity of the brain-case by filling skulls with shot or seed. Professor Flower gives as a mean estimate of the contents of skulls in cubic inches, Australian, seventy-nine; African, eighty-five; European, ninety-one. Eminent anatomists also think that the brain of the European is somewhat more complex in its convolutions than the brain of a Negro or Hottentot. Thus, though these observations are far from perfect, they show a connexion between a more full and intricate system of brain-cells and fibres, and a higher intellectual power, in the races which have risen in the scale of civilization.

The form of the skull itself, so important in its relation to the brain within and the expressive features without, has been to the anatomist one of the best means of distin guishing races. It is often possible to tell by inspection of a skull what race it belongs to. The narrow cranium of the negro (Fig. 9a) would not be mistaken for the broad cranium of the Samoyed (Fig. 9c.) On taking down from a museum shelf a certain narrow, wall-sided, roof-topped, forward-jawed skull with unusually strong brow-ridges (Fig. Iod), there is no difficulty in recognising it as Australian. In comparing skulls, some of the most easily noticeable distinctions are the following.