negroes and savages in many parts of the world paint their faces with red, blue, white, or black bars, so the male mandrill of Africa appears to have acquired his deeply-furrowed and gaudily-colored face from having been thus rendered attractive to the female."[1]
And again " In Regard to Colour, the new-born negro child is reddish nut-brown, which soon becomes slaty-grey; the black colour being fully developed within a year in the Soudan, but not until three years in Egypt. The eyes of the negro are at first blue, and the hair chestnut-brown rather than black, being curled only at the ends."[2]
In short, as has long been known, in his physical organization the typical West Coast negro, whether living in Africa or living in America is as near the anthropoid apes as any of the savage races of mankind,—perhaps the nearest. He is untold ages nearer than is the typical representative of the best in the white race. Taken as a whole we may say the same thing of him, when we take his mental and moral qualifications into consideration. Further along in the present work I shall touch more fully upon these points than I intend to in the present chapter. Professor Keane has said some wise and true things illustrating this side of the negro character. He states that the mental differences between the negro and the white races are quite as well marked as the physical ones,
- ↑ Darwin, Chas. "The Descent of Man," pp. 540, 541. The comparison made here is an especially good one, and will be appreciated by any one who has had the opportunity to see the native Africans paint up their faces as I have, and wrinkle them up in the manner above described, and also to study the face of the African mandrill, a most remarkable simian.
- ↑ Loc. cit., p. 557.
