Note 1138 — Chapter XIV · —Plains, Steppes And Deserts

The privations and hardships of life in the deserts and steppes discourage obesity. The Koko-Nor Mongols of the high Tibetan plateau are of slight build, never fat.1138 The Bedouin's physical ideal of a man is spare, sinewy, energetic and vigorous, "lean-sided and thin," as the Arab poet expresses it.1139 The nomadic tribesmen throughout the Sahara, whether of Hamitic, Semitic or Negro race, show this type, and retain it even after several generations of settlement in the river valleys of the Sudan. The Bushmen, who inhabit the Kalahari Desert, have thin wiry forms and are capable of great exertion and privations.1140