and the deep black skin of the typical Negro,
are not peculiar to the African continent."[66]
The Negro is found in the low, marshy, and malarious districts. We
think the Negro is produced in a descending scale. The African who
moves from the mountain regions down into the miasmatic districts may
be observed to lose his stature, his complexion, his hair, and his
intellectual vigor: he finally becomes the Negro. Pathologically
considered, he is weak, sickly, and short-lived. His legs are slender
and almost calf-less: the head is developed in the direction of the
passions, while the whole form is destitute of symmetry.
"It will be understood that the typical Negroes, with whom
the slavers are supplied, represent the dangerous, the
destitute, and diseased classes of African society. They may
be compared to those which in England fill our jails, our
workhouses, and our hospitals. So far from being equal to
us, the polished inhabitants of Europe, as some ignorant
people suppose, they are immeasurably below the Africans
themselves,
"The typical Negro is the true savage of Africa; and I must
paint the deformed anatomy of his mind, as I have already
done that of his body.
"The typical Negroes dwell in petty tribes, where all are
equal except the women, who are slaves; where property is
common, and where, consequently, there is no property at
all; where one may recognize the Utopia of philosophers, and
observe the saddest and basest spectacles which humanity can
afford.
"The typical Negro, unrestrained by moral laws, spends his
days in sloth, his nights in debauchery. He smokes hashish
till he stupefies his senses or falls into convulsions; he
drinks palm-wine till he brings on a loathsome disease; he
abuses children, stabs the poor brute of a woman whose hands
keep him from starvation, and makes a trade of his own
offspring. He swallows up his youth in premature vice; he
lingers through a manhood of disease, and his tardy death is
hastened by those who no longer care to find him food.... If
you wish to know what they have been, and to what we may
restore them, look at the portraits which have been
preserved of the ancient Egyptians: and in those delicate
and voluptuous forms; in those round, soft features; in
those long, almond-shaped, half-closed, languish
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