162 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



of beauty and form differs materially in any country. 

 Fashion may have the influence of setting up certain 

 deformities for perfections, both at Pekin and at Paris, 

 but they are invariably apologies which national pride 

 oifers for its own defects. The youthful beauty of 

 Canton would be handsome in London ; and the Tahtar 

 nations, in the days of their conquering career, married 

 the daughters of semi- Caucasian nomad princes, or 

 notoriously selected, for their chiefs, the same class of 

 European or Caucasian forms as they still purchase 

 from Circassia and Persia, AfFghanistan, Cashmere, and 

 India. * Luddee, the young wife of Abba Thule, chief 

 of the Pelew Islands, was handsome on the Caucasian 

 model ; so are all the beauties of Malay or other blood 

 in the South Sea Islands ; the most admired young 

 females among the Arookas and the Caribs. The Chip- 

 peways likewise have many beauties; and so was 

 Harriet, the belle of Lorette Sauvage, a Huron village 

 near Quebec. In all these cases, both Europeans and 

 natives agreed. 



Human growth, according to Professor Quetelet, is 

 not completed until the 25th year, at least in Belgium ; 

 but this period is supposed to be shorter in other coun- 



* It is from these sources that the energetic innervation 

 was principally derived, which gave birth to the great 

 Toorkee Mongol e conquerors, both in the west and in 

 China. Such, for example, was Alancona, wife of Pesouka 

 Bahander, of the Niron Toorkee tribe of smiths ; Purtan 

 Congine, daughter of Conjorat Khan, the ambitious w*t'e of 

 Genghis, and Toorakina Catan, wife of Octai. 



