and other African slaves imported
there continue in the last instance as perfectly black as in the original
stock. I do not mean to enter into the merits of the question which
naturally connects with these observations; but shall only remark that
the sallow and adust countenances so commonly acquired by Europeans who
have long resided in hot climates are more ascribable to the effect of
bilious distempers, which almost all are subject to in a greater or less
degree, than of their exposure to the influence of the weather, which few
but seafaring people are liable to, and of which the impression is seldom
permanent. From this circumstance I have been led to conjecture that the
general disparity of complexions in different nations might POSSIBLY be
owing to the more or less copious secretion or redundance of that juice,
rendering the skin more or less dark according to the qualities of the
bile prevailing in the constitutions of each. But I fear such a
hypothesis would not stand the test of experiment, as it might be
expected to follow that, upon dissection, the contents of a negro's
gall-bladder, or at least the extravasated bile, should uniformly be
found black. Persons skilled in anatomy will determine whether it is
possible that the qualities of any animal secretion can so far affect the
frame as to render their consequences liable to be transmitted to
posterity in their full force.*

(*Footnote. In an Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and
Figure in the Human Species published at Philadelphia in 1787 the
permanent effect of the bilious secretion in determining the colour is
strongly insisted upon.)

The small size of the inhabitants, and especially of the women, may be in
some measure owing to the early communication between the sexes; though,
as the inclinations which lead to this intercourse are prompted here by
nature sooner than in cold climates, it is not unfair to suppose that,
being proportioned to the period of maturity, this is also sooner
attained, and consequently that the earlier cessation of growth of these
people is agreeable to the laws of their constitution, and not occasioned
by a premature and irregular appetite.

Persons of superior rank encourage the growth of their hand-nails,
particularly those of the fore and little fingers, to an extraordinary
length; frequently tingeing them red with the expressed juice of a shrub
which they call inei, the henna of the Arabians; as they do the