66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



one Aboo Arish, a subaltern officer, whose stern command and intrepid 

 bearing bad often retrieved the fortune of a doubtful battle ; and after 

 the close of the war it occurred to him to utilize the stentorian talent 

 of his lieutenant in a different way. He made him the coadjutor of 

 his envoy to the neighboring chieftains, and had no cause to regret his 

 appointment, for, even on occasions that would have foiled the strategy 

 of a European diplomat, the mere presence of Aboo Arish never failed 

 to overawe the council of a hostile tribe. 



This power of a physiognomic majesty is well illustrated by another 

 story from the Caucasus, which I find in Lermontoff's history of the 

 eventful campaign that ended with the capture of the prophet-chieftain, 

 Shamyl ben Haddin, on the plateau of Ghunib, September 10, 1859. 

 Eighteen hundred against twenty-six thousand, his men had defended 

 themselves from early morning till after noon, and, when his ammu- 

 nition was exhausted, began to hurl rocks and cannon from the para- 

 pets. But toward evening the citadel was taken by storm, and the 

 survivors of the garrison were led forth, torn and bleeding, but re- 

 solved to die game. The officers of the Russian headquarters had 

 adjourned for supper, as soon as the bloody work was done, but, when 

 the commanding officer was notified that the great chieftain was among 

 the prisoners, he gave orders to conduct him at once into his presence. 

 A noise of boisterous mirth greeted the arrival of Shamyl when his 

 escort halted before the commander's tent, but when he stood in the 

 presence of his captors, like Ormuz before the court of Ahriman, a 

 deep silence came over the assembly, and the insolent Junkers of Ba- 

 ryatinski's staff involuntarily rose to their feet, as if they felt the pres- 

 ence of a superior being ! 



" When he contracted his eyebrows, his look could assume a pene- 

 trative force that I have never seen equaled," says Lermontoff. Ma- 

 rius and Robert Burns had such eyes, and also Yasco de Gama, el de 

 los ojos terribles, who " could read a face like an open book," and once 

 quelled the spokesmen of a mutinous crew by simply keeifing them 

 under the fire of that terrible gaze. 



How men can be affected by excessive ugliness history illustrates by 

 many amusing examples. We have already referred to the nose of the 

 first Hapsburger, which came so near defeating his nomination ; but, if 

 the descriptions of Caliph Walid's face are authentic, he was lucky that 

 his accession to the throne of the Prophet did not depend upon the 

 votes of men with physiognomic prejudices. His nose was crooked 

 and sharp like a reaping-hook, his cheeks so tumid that " they could 

 be seen from behind" ; his mouth was atrocious, and, to put a finishing 

 touch to the portrait, Abulfeda informs us that he was marked by the 

 small-pox as man was never marked before, " pits like auger-holes" dis- 

 tributed over his face from ear to ear. 



" Non cuique datum est habere nasum another Eastern potentate, 

 Ghengis Khan, had no nose to speak of, and was otherwise so fright- 



