The foot varies not less. The Negro races of the Oceanic Islands, and of Africa, appear to show an exaggerated development of the heel-bone. MM. Quoy and Gaimard have especially remarked it among the inhabitants of Vanikoro. In fact, there is hardly anybody who will forget, when once he has seen it, the special aspect of the instep in the Negro, ridged with numerous folds commencing from beneath the ankle. This is, besides, a particular mark, which is far from showing itself, as may be well believed, among _all_ people who walk without foot-covering. The foot of the Nubians, and especially that of the females, shows quite different characteristics. The five metatarsi seem to rest their whole length upon the ground, without being shaped by the instep; their anterior extremities are slightly diverted, the toes having the same spaces between them, so that the foot is flat, but otherwise than by the faulty conformation to which we give this name among ourselves. This structure is, besides, perfectly represented in all Egyptian statues without exception, and more sensibly, indeed, if we compare with those which are in the galleries of the British Museum, a fragment of a colossal foot,[125] found also in Egypt, at Alexandria, but evidently of Greek or Roman origin; the toes are close together, the great toe alone being separated, the upper part of the foot being arched, as among Europeans. This resemblance between all the Egyptian statues and the foot of the inhabitants of Upper Egypt, or Nubia, cannot be an accidental circumstance. It is, besides, a veritable problem in anthropology, to determine its value in accordance with the monumental iconography of the ancient Egyptians. M. A. Maury has determined with precision the authority of the portraits--almost all alike--which cover the walls of the temples. We ourselves, when visiting the famous cavern of Abou-Simbel, were far from finding all that the writings of certain anthropologists and partisans of Egyptian art, such as Gliddon, Nott, etc., had promised us. Doubtless, one can perfectly distinguish certain types,[126] that is indisputable;[127] but to desire to find a _people_ in each portrait,--Scythians, Arabs, Philistines, Lydians, Kurds, Hindoos, Jews, Chinese, Tyrians, Pelasgians, Ionians, etc.,--is it not to give too great an influence to the Egyptian artists, who were copyists without skill, and but clumsy inventors? Egyptian art, whatever may have been said of it, has always been very much farther from being a copy of nature than Grecian art; the one tended to the ideal, the other tended to transform it. Certain trees which we see thrown down in the bas-relief of the great temple of Karnak, are assuredly pure imagination. It may have been the same with many other subjects to which a scientific value has been given.