660 



THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



who are reckoned beautiful in proportion as they display 

 this form of face." The Siamese have small noses with 

 divergent nostrils, a wide mouth, rather thick lips, a 

 remarkably large face, with very high and broad cheek- 

 bones. It is, therefore, not wonderful that "beauty, 

 according to our notion, is a stranger to them. Yet they 

 consider their own females to be much more beautiful than 

 those of Europe."* 



It is well known that with many Hottentot women the 

 posterior part of the body projects in a wonderful manner; 

 they are steatopygous; and Sir Andrew Smith is certain 

 that this peculiarity is greatly admired by the men. f He 

 once saw a woman who was considered a beauty, and she 

 was so immensely developed behind that when seated on 

 level ground she could not rise, and had to push herself 

 along until she came to a slope. Some of the women in 

 various negro tribes have the same peculiarity; and, accord- 

 ing to Burton, the Somal men "are said to choose their 

 wives by ranging them in a line and by picking her out 

 who projects farthest a tergo. Nothing can be more hate- 

 ful to a negro than the opposite form.";); 



With respect to color, the negroes railed Mungo Park 

 on the whiteness of his skin and the prominence of his 

 nose, both of which they considered as "unsightly and 

 unnatural conformations." He in return praised the glossy 

 jet of their skins and the lovely depression of their noses; 

 this they said was (f honey mouth," nevertheless they gave 

 him food. The African Moors, also, "knitted their brows 

 and seemed to shudder" at the whiteness of his skin. On 

 the eastern coast the negro boys when they saw Burton, 

 cried out: " Look at the white man; does he not look like 

 a white ape?" On the western coast, as Mr. Winwood 

 Reade informs me, the negroes admire a very black skin 

 more than one of a lighter tint. But their horror of 



* Pricliard, as taken from Crawfurd and Finlayson, " Phys. Hist, 

 of Mankind," vol. iv, pp. 534, 535. 



f Idem illustrissimus viator dixit milii praecinctorium vel tabulam 

 fceminse, quod nobis teterrimum est, quondam perniagno aestimari ab 

 hominibus in hac gente. Nunc res mutata est, et censent taleni con- 

 formationein mininie optandain esse. 



| "The Anthropological Review," Nov., 1864, p. 237. For addi- 

 tional reference, see Waitz, " Introduct. to Anthropology," Eng. 

 translat., 1863, vol. i, p. 105. 



