74 LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 

 my own womankind, adornments developed 

 naturally on the male for the enhancement of 

 his own proper beauty. The female ostrich, 

 in her robe of tender, greyish brown, is attrac- 

 tive enough to her prospective mate without 

 artificial aid. Were she to hang a wisp of 

 human hair about her graceful, undulating 

 neck, she would rightly be regarded as a freak. 



Schopenhauer was right, among human 

 beings as among other animals the male is 

 esentially more beautiful than the female; it 

 is the sex-disturbance which confuses our 

 canons. If it were otherwise women would not 

 find it necessary to ransack mineral, vegetable 

 and animal nature for the purpose of enhanc- 

 ing their attractiveness. 



My plucking came to an end. The long, 

 foamy whites, the short, glossy blacks whose 

 hue was deeper than that of the raven's wing, 

 were tied into bundles with twine from my 

 compendious haversack. There lay the hud- 

 dled, ruined, mangled body; there grinned the 

 already dry and blackened blood-clot defacing 

 the desert's visage. Rifled of its garment of 

 harmonious and appropriate beauty, smitten 

 and smashed into an object of grisly horror, 

 this piteous sacrifice to woman's callous vanity 

 and the heartless cruelty of her mate seemed 



