The natives of Monomotapa, the Dutch travellers inform us, are tall, well proportioned, black, and of good complexions. The young girls go naked, except a bit of calico about their middle; but so soon as they are married they put on garments. This people, notwithstanding their blackness, are different from the negroes, their features are neither so harsh nor so ugly; their bodies have no bad smell; and they are incapable of servitude or hard labour. Father Charlevoix says, that some blacks from Monomotapa, and from Madagascar, have been seen in America; but that they could not be inured to labour, and that they soon died.
The natives of Madagascar and Mosambique are black, more or less. Those of Madagascar have the hair on the crown of their head less frizly than those of Mosambique. Neither of them are real negroes; and though those of the coast are enslaved by the Portuguese, yet those of the internal part of the continent are savage and jealous of their liberty. They all go absolutely naked; they feed on the flesh of elephants, and traffic with the ivory.
In Madagascar there are blacks and whites who, though very tawny, yet seem a distinct race of men. The hair of the first is black and frizly; that of the latter is less black, less frizly, and longer. The common opinion is, that these white men derive their origin from the Chinese. But, as Francis Cauche justly remarks, there is a greater probability that they are of European race; as in all he saw, there was not one who had either the flat face or flat nose, of the Chinese. He likewise says, that these white men are fairer than the Castillans; that their hair is very long; that the black men are not flat-nosed like those of the continent; and that their lips are thin. There are also in this island a number of persons of an olive or tawny colour, evidently produced by the intermixture of the blacks and whites. The same traveller observes, that the natives round the bay of St. Augustine are tawny; that they have no beard; that their hair is long and straight; that they are tall and well proportioned; and that they are all circumcised, though probably they never heard of the law of Mahomet, as they have neither temples, mosques, nor religion.