ANIMALS. 189 



Among the moderns, every country seems to have peculiar ideas of 

 beauty.* The Persians admire large eye-brows, joining in the middle ; 

 the edges and corners of the eyes are tinctured with black, and the 

 size of the head is increased by a great variety of bandages formed in- 

 to a turban. In some parts of India, black teeth and white hair are 

 desired with ardour; and one of the principal employments of the 

 women of Thibet, is to redden the teeth with herbs, and to make theii 

 hair white by a certain preparation. The passion for coloured teeth 

 obtains also in China and Japan ; where to complete their idea of 

 beauty, the object of desire must have little eyes, nearly closed, feet 

 extremely small, and a waist far from being shapely. There are some 

 nations of the American Indians that flatten the heads of their chil- 

 dren, by keeping them, while young, squeezed between two boards, 

 so as to make the visage much larger than it would naturally be. 

 Others flatten the head at top ; and others make it as round as they 

 possibly can. The inhabitants along the western coasts of Africa 

 have a very extraordinary taste for beauty. A flat nose, thick lips, 

 and jet-black complexion, are there the most indulgent gifts of nature. 

 Such, indeed, they are all, in some degree, found to possess. How- 

 ever, they take care, by art, to increase their natural deformities, as 

 they should seem to us ; and they have many additional methods of 

 rendering their persons still more frightfully pleasing. The whoje 

 body and visage is often scarred with a variety of monstrous figures ; 

 which is not done without great pain, and repeated incision : and even 

 sometimes parts of the body are cut away. But it would be endless to 

 remark the various arts which caprice or custom has employed to dis- 

 tort and disfigure the body, in order to render it more pleasing ; in 

 fact, every nation, how barbarous soever, seems unsatisfied with the 

 human figure, as nature has left it, and has its peculiar arts of height- 

 ening beauty. Painting, powdering, cutting, boring the nose and the 

 ears, lengthening the one, and depressing the other, are arts practised 

 in many countries ; and, in some degree, admired in all. These arts 

 might have been at first introduced to hide epidemic deformities ; 

 custom, by degrees, reconciles them to the view ; till, from looking 

 upon them with indifference, the eye at length begins to gaze with 

 pleasure. 



CHAPTER V 



OP THE AGE OP MANHOOD t 



THE human body attains to its full height during the age of puber 

 ty ; or, at least, a short time after. Some young people are found to 

 cease growing at fourteen or fifteen ; others continue their growth til) 

 two or three and twenty. During this period they are all of a slendei 



Buffon. 



t This chapter is translated from Mr. Buffon, whose description is very excellem.- 

 Whatever I have added, is marked by inverted commas. " thus." And hi whawv* 

 trifling points I have differed, the notes will serve to show 



