CHAPTER VII.
OUR DARKER FOREFATHERS.
ONE of the facts concerning the colour of the hair and eyes of the people in different counties of England at the present time, brought to light by scientific observations, is that there is a higher percentage of people of a mixed brown type living in Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, and Dorset, than in most other counties. Except those in Cornwall and on the old Celtic borders, the inhabitants of these counties are the darkest. This is usually explained on the supposition that in the process of the Saxon settlement at British population was allowed to remain in these parts of England, which in the course of centuries became mixed with the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon descent, and consequently the present population is more marked than those of pure descent by brown, hazel, or black eyes, with brown (chestnut), dark-brown, or black hair.[1] The counties of Hertford and Buckingham have people as dark as Wales. All investigation goes to show that this brunette outcrop is a reality. Beddoe found that the area in which there is a larger percentage of brown people in England extends from the river Lea to the Warwickshire Avon. In dealing with the circumstances of the settlement, these ethnological facts must receive consideration. The survival
- ↑ Ripley, W. Z., ‘The Races of Europe,’ p. 323, and Haddon, A. C., ‘The Study of Man,’ pp. 38, 39.
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