Chap. XIX. BEAUTY. 347 



Kafirs, who differ much from negroes, " the skin, except 

 *' among the tribes near Delagoa Bay, is not usually 

 " black, the prevailing colour being a mixture of black 

 *' and red, the most common shade being chocolate. 

 *' Dark complexions, as being most common are natu- 

 *' rally held in the highest esteem. To be told that he 

 " is light-coloured, or like a white man, would be deemed 

 " a very poor compliment by a Kafir. I have heard of 

 " one unfortunate man Avho was so very fair that no 

 " girl would marry him." One of the titles of the 

 Zulu king is "You who are black." ^^ Mr. Galton, in 

 speaking to me about the natives of S. Africa, remarked 

 that their ideas of beauty seem very different from 

 ours ; for in one tribe two slim, slight, and pretty girls 

 were not admired by the natives. 



Turning to other quarters of the world; in Java, a 

 yellow, not a white girl, is considered, according to 

 Madame Pfeiffer, a beauty. A man of Cochin-China 

 " spoke with contempt of the wife of the English 

 " Ambassador, that she had w^hite teeth like a dog, 

 " and a rosy colour like that of potato-flowers." We 

 have seen that the Chinese dislike our wdiite skin, and 

 that the N. Americans admire "a tawny hide." In 

 S. America, the Yura-caras, who inhabit the wooded, 

 damp slopes of the eastern Cordillera, are remarkably 

 pale-coloured, as their name in their own language 

 expresses ; nevertheless they consider European women 

 as very inlerior to their own.^^ 



" 'Mungo Park's Travels in Africa,' 4to. 1816, p. 53, 131. Burton's 

 statement is quoted by Schaafifhausen, ' Arcliiv fiir Anthropolog.' 18G6, 

 s. 163. On the Banyai, Livingstone, ' Travels,' p. 64. On the Kafirs, 

 the Kev. J. Shooter, ' The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country,' 1857 

 p. 1. 



5« For the Javanese and Cochin-Chinese,' see Waitz, ' lutroduct. to 

 Antliropology,' Eug. trauslat. vol. i. p. 305. On the Yura-caras, A. 



