Argument I take to be far more Specious than Convincing; for though the
Heat of the Sun may Darken the Colour of the Skin, by that Operation, which
we in _English_ call Sun-burning, yet Experience doth not Evince, that I
remember, That that Heat alone can produce a Discolouring that shall amount
to a true Blackness, like that of _Negroes_, and we shall see by and by
that even the Children of some _Negroes_ not yet 10. dayes Old (perhaps not
so much by three quarters of that time) will notwithstanding their Infancy
be of the same Hue with their Parents. Besides, there is this strong
Argument to be alleg'd against the Vulgar Opinion, that in divers places in
_Asia_ under the same Parallel, or even of the same Degree of Latitude with
the _African_ Regions Inhabited by Blacks, the People are at most but
Tawny;[10] And in _Africa_ it self divers Nations in the Empire of
_Ethiopia_ are not _Negroes_, though Situated in the Torrid Zone, and as
neer the AEquinoctial, as other Nations that are so (as the Black
Inhabitants of _Zeylan_ and _Malabar_ are not in our Globes plac'd so near
the Line as _Amara_ the Famousest place in _Ethiopia_.) Moreover, (that
which is of no small Moment in our present Disquisition) I find not by the
best Navigators and Travellers to the _West-Indies_, whose Books or
themselves I have consulted on this Subject, that excepting perhaps one
place or two of small extent, there are any Blacks Originally Natives of
any part of _America_ (for the Blacks now there have been by the
_Europeans_ long Transplanted thither) though the New World contain in it
so great a Variety of Climates, and particularly reach quite Cross the
Torri'd Zone from one Tropick to another. And enough it be true that the
_Danes_ be a Whiter People than the _Spaniards_, yet that may proceed
rather from other causes (not here to be enquired into) than from the
Coldness of the Climate, since not onely the _Swedes_ and other Inhabitants
of those Cold Countreys, are not usually so White as the _Danes_, nor
Whiter than other Nations in proportion to their Vicinity to the Pole. [And
since the Writing of the former part of this Essay, having an opportunity
on a Solemn occasion to take Notice of the Numerous Train of Some
Extraordinary Embassadours sent from the _Russian_ Emperour to a great
Monarch, observ'd, that (though it were then Winter) the Colour of their
Hair and Skin was far less Whitish than the _Danes_ who Inhabit a milder
Region is wo