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Show .. · . ·.. . · .... ·· .·..·..·..·· . ... UNAHTISTICAL RACES • 101 tury n. c., to the ·first centuries of our era, which all speak for the unalterable constancy of the negro type such as it is in our own days. We sec that it was not only tho color, but the peculiar type that struck tho ancients; and which the Romans, for instan c, knew quite as minutely as any modern cthno logiRts. Pctronius, who lived under the emperor N ct·o, describes, in his N ovcl, three vagabond litcra1·y men who, having taken passage in a ship on the Me litorrancan, suddenly discover that it belongs to a merchant on board, whom two of them had previously robbed. Dreading his revenge, one of them says : Fig. 01. N~-:ono lh:Ao. ( l'ulszky Ooll.) "Bumolpus, being n scholnr, hns certainly ink with him: let us tltcroforo dye ourselves from top to toe, and ns Ethiopian slaves we shall be at his commnnd without fear of torture; for by Lho chango of color wo sl tnll dccoivc our onomics." Dut OoiLon oxolnims in reply: "nsit'color alone could tmnsl'orm our shnpo! for mnny things have to conspit·o thnt tho lie might bo mainLninod under nny circumstances. Or 01111 we Jill ou t· lips with nn ugly swelling? cnn wo crisp out· hnir with an iron? nnd nuu·k ou1· forohcnd with scnrs? uud distend our shnnks into a curve? nnd !lmw om· heels down to tho onrth? tlnd chnngo our board into a foreign fashion? -n.rWicinl color besmears tho body, but docs not chaugo it." 211 Voltaire has somewhere wittily remarked, "tho first white man who beheld a negro must have been greatly astonished; but the reasoner who claims that tho negro comes from the white man aAtonishos me a great deal more." N egrocs, however, arc not the only u nartistical race. W c have already spoken of tho Sh mites amon,o- tho whites, and we must add to them the Turaniau or Turk-Tartar family of nations; tl1at is to say, the Hungarians proper, tho Turks and TlU·komans, the l~'inns, and some migratory tribes of outhcrn Siberia; none of them ever having produced any painter or sculptor. But not even all the J apetides are endowed with artistical tendencies. The Celts and Slavonians, and among tho Teutonic races, tho Scandinavians, had no national art. The imagery of thcit· epics and lyl'ics is neither picturesque nor sculptural; their buildings, pictures and statues, arc characterized by no peculiar typo, and are either the works of foreigners, or scrvi lo imiLatious of imported models. 'l'ho Turks and Celts have, at least, a peculiar feeling for ornament, for decorative art and harmony of colors; but all the other nations mentioned above have never felt that inward impulse which prompted even the semi-civilized Toltccan 2ll '!'. PETUONfl ARJJ I'J'Ilr, Satiricon, Clip. err: -compnro tho oxtrnct from Vmorr. in Types of Afaulrind (p. 255); nne! tbe quotntion from LOOMAN's 111tblr3: (p. 24G) which is but the Arabian or I>orsitlU dress of tho same idoa in lEsoP's. |