Chap. XIX. BEAUTY. 351 



bable tliat negroes would ever prefer the *' most beaii- 

 " tifiil European woman, on the mere grounds of physical 

 admiration, to a good-looking negress."^^ 



The truth of the principle, long ago insisted on by 

 Humboldt,^^ that man admires and often tries to exag- 

 gerate whatever characters nature may have given him, 

 is shewn in many ways. The practice of beardless races 

 extirpating every trace of a beard, and generally all the 

 hairs on the bodv, offers one illustration. The skull has 

 been greatly modified during ancient and modern times 

 by many nations ; and there can be little doubt that this 

 has been practised, especially in N. and S. America, in 

 order to exaggerate some natural and admired pecu- 

 liarity. Many American Indians are known to admire a 

 head flattened to such an extreme degree as to appear 

 to us like that of an idiot. The natives on the north- 

 western coast compress the head into a pointed cone ; 

 and it is their constant practice to gather the hair 

 into a knot on the top of the head, for the sake, as 

 Dr. Wilson remarks, " of increasing the apparent eleva- 

 " tion of the favourite conoid form." The inhabitants 

 of Arakhan " admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in 

 *' order to produce it, they fasten a plate of lead on the 

 '' heads of the new-born children." On the other hand. 



*2 The Fuegians, as I have been informed by a missionary who Jong 

 resided with them, consider European women as extremely beautiful ; 

 but from what we have seen of the judgment of the other aborigines of 

 America, I cannot but think that this must^be a mistake, unless indeed 

 the statement refers to the few Fuegians who have lived for some time 

 with Eiiropeans, and who must consider us as superior beings. I should 

 add that a most experienced observer, Capt. Burton, believes that a 

 woman whom we consider beautiful is admired throughout the world, 

 ' Anthropological Keview,' March, 18G-1, p. 245. 



^3 ' Personal Narrative,' Eug. translat. vol. iv. p. 518, and elsewhere. 

 Mantegazza, in his ' Viaggi e Studi,' 18G7, strongly insists on this 

 same principle. 



