The colour of the skin is chocolate, and resembles the Malay, although perhaps a little darker. The colour of the skin is, of course, greatly dependent upon the nature of the climate and the constant exposure of the surface of the body to the sun; the parts under the arms are of a brighter colour than those more exposed. We find in human races, as in vegetation, that every successive level alters its character; thus indicating that the state of the temperature of high regions assimilates to high latitudes. If, therefore, complexions depend upon climate and external conditions, we should expect to find them varying in reference to elevation of surface; and if they should be actually found to undergo such variations, this will be a strong argument in favour of the supposition that these external characters do in fact depend upon local conditions. The Swiss in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy have sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself to the traveller in the Milanese, where the peasants have black hair and almost Oriental features! The Basques, of the tracts approaching the Pyrenees, says Colonel Napier, are a strikingly different people from the inhabitants of the low parts around, whether Spaniards or Biscayans. They are finely made, tall men, with aquiline noses, fair complexions, light eyes, and flaxen hair; instead of the swarthy complexion, black hair, and dark eyes of the Castilian. And in Africa what striking differences of complexion exist between the Negro of the plains and of the mountains, even whilst the osteology is the same, therefore I pass over the hair and skin of the Australian as parts too much subjected to the influence of climate to afford means of legitimate deduction. It is the general opinion that these natives are not a long-lived race. The poverty of their food may account for this, together with the want of shelter from the vicissitudes of the climate. The care taken by civilized man to preserve health is, by increasing susceptibility, the indirect cause of disease; the more rigid is the observance of regimen, the more pernicious will be the slightest aberration from it; but a total disregard of all the comforts of regular food, and efficient shelter, the habit of cramming the stomach when food is plentiful, and of enduring long abstinence when it cannot be procured, has a far more baneful effect upon the human constitution than all the excesses of the white man. As man recedes from one hastener of destruction, he inevitably approaches another: "Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund Of plagues, but more immedicable ills Attend the lean extreme."