In spite of these various ingredients the Japanese people may be regarded as fairly homogeneous. Apart from some tall and robust persons amongst the upper classes, and athletes, acrobats, and wrestlers, the general impression that the Japanese are a short finely moulded race is fully borne out by the now regularly recorded military measurements of recruits, showing for height an average of 1.585 m. (5 ft. 2-1/2 in.) to 1.639 m. (5 ft. 4-1/2 in.), for chest 33 in., and disproportionately short legs. Other distinctive characters, all tending to stamp a certain individuality on the people, taken as a whole and irrespective of local peculiarities, are a flat forehead, great distance between the eyebrows, a very small nose with raised nostrils, no glabella, no perceptible nasal root[661]; an active, wiry figure; the exposed skin less yellow than the Chinese, and rather inclining to a light fawn, but the covered parts very light, some say even white; the eyes also less oblique, and all other characteristically Mongol features generally softened, except the black lank hair, which in transverse section is perhaps even rounder than that of most other Mongol peoples[662]. With this it will be instructive to compare F. H. H. Guillemard's graphic account of the Liu-Kiu islanders, whose Koreo-Japanese affinities are now placed beyond all doubt: "They are a short race, probably even shorter than the Japanese, but much better proportioned, being without the long bodies and short legs of the latter people, and having as a rule extremely well-developed chests. The colour of the skin varies of course with the social position of the individual. Those who work in the fields, clad only in a waist-cloth, are nearly as dark as a Malay, but the upper classes are much fairer, and are at the same time devoid of any of the yellow tint of the Chinaman. To the latter race indeed they cannot be said to bear any resemblance, and though the type is much closer to the Japanese, it is nevertheless very distinct.... In Liu-Kiu the Japanese and natives were easily recognised by us from the first, and must therefore be possessed of very considerable differences. The Liu-Kiuan has the face less flattened, the eyes are more deeply set, and the nose more prominent at its origin. The forehead is high and the cheek-bones somewhat less marked than in the Japanese; the eyebrows are arched and thick, and the eyelashes long. The expression is gentle and pleasing, though somewhat sad, and is apparently a true index of their character[663]."