Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/530

514 make but gives to their well-built, slender, elastic forms, with their graceful bearing, an appearance like that of bronze statues, especially when they are lighted up by the sun. The eyes of the Nubians at Halle were, without exception, dark brown, with a beaming glance, the whites mottled with yellow or brown. They all wore their lusterless black hair after the fashion common everywhere in the Bêdsha, with the top hair done up over the head in the form of a pillow, the rest of the hair twisted into loose tufts hanging downward over the ears, and gathered at the bottom into broad curls. They all had a growth of beard, not very thick in any of them, but much stronger than it is generally supposed that they have, and much like that of the south Arabians. Little or no hair grew on other parts of the body, except that they had some strong black hairs below the knees. Their height varied from five feet three and three quarter inches, to five feet ten and three quarter inches, the girth of their calves from eleven and one half inches to fourteen and one quarter inches, giving an average height of five feet six inches, and an average measurement of nearly twelve and three quarter inches around the calf. The form of their skulls fixed their place among the mesocephalic races, and, with the broad facial index of seventy degrees and a small per cent., gave to the face the shape of a "well-formed oval of moderate breadth." The head rested on a moderately short, strong neck, and the muscular development of the neck, breast, and arms was very fine. Except in the palms of their hands and the soles of their feet, they appeared to be deeply colored, especially in the covered parts of the body; but the brown in the face was a little more inclined to a bronze color. The membranous skin in the corners of the eyes and on the lips participated in this coloration, and this made the splendidly preserved teeth appear all of a brighter white. The ring-finger in all extended beyond the forefinger, and the great-toe was shorter than the second toe. Their mother-tongue was the ancient Bedanie, the Bêdsha language, but they also spoke Arabic. Their senses of hearing, smell, and sight were delicate and sharp. No trace of colorblindness could be found among them. They distinguished with ease fifteen colors, several of which were very nearly related, but had no particular terms for yellow, or to distinguish between blue and green. This fact contradicts the theory that the absence of a particular name for a color indicates a destitution of the faculty of recognizing it among other colors. For colors for which they had no specific name they used the word sotái—colored.

In a like manner, says Kirchhoff, the Djâlin in adopting the Arabic language use the Arabic word achder (green) also for blue, and the written Arabic assek, blue, more in the sense of black and brown. This may throw some light on the meaning of Bahr-el-Assek, which we translate Blue Nile, after the meaning of the written Arabic word, when it might be better to follow the local meaning, and call it dark