Europe, or from the European
standard of beauty. Yet the slaves in the colonies, particularly in
those of England, were brought from the west coast of intertropical
Africa, where the peculiarities of figure, which in our eyes
constitute deformity in the Negro, are chiefly prevalent. The black
people imported into the French and to some of the Portuguese
colonies, from the eastern coast of the African continent, and from
Congo, are much better made. The most degraded and savage nations are
the ugliest. Among the most improved and the partially civilized, as
the Ashantees, and other interior States, the figure and the features
of the native people approach much more to the European. The ugliest
Negro tribes are confined to the equatorial countries; and on both
sides of the equator, as we advance towards the temperate zones, the
persons of the inhabitants are most handsome and well formed.

In a later period of this work I shall cite authors who have proved
that many races belonging to this department of mankind are noted for
the beauty of their features, and their fine stature and proportions.
Adanson has made this observation of the Negroes on the Senegal. He
thus describes the men. "Leur taille est pour l'ordinaire au-dessus de
la mediocre, bien prise et sans defaut. Ils sont forts, robustes, et
d'un temperament propre a la fatigue. Ils ont les yeux noirs et bien
fendus, peu de barbe, les traits du visage assez agreables." They are
complete Negroes, for it is added that their complexion is of a fine
black, that their hair is black, frizzled, cottony, and of extreme
fineness. The women are said to be of nearly equal stature with the
men, and equally well made. "Leur visage est d'une douceur extreme.
Elles ont les yeux noirs, bien fendus, la bouche et les levres
petites, et les traits du visage bien proportionnes. Il s'en trouve
plusieurs d'une beaute parfaite." Mr. Rankin, a highly intelligent
traveller, who reports accurately and without prejudice the results of
his personal observation, has recently given a similar testimony in
regard to some of the numerous tribes of northern Negro-land, who
frequent the English colony of Sierra Leone. In the skull of the more
improved and civilized nations among the woolly-haired blacks of
Africa, there is comparatively slight deviation from the form which
may be looked upon as the common type of the human head. We are
assured, for example, by M. Golberry, that the Ioloffs, whose co