390. ORIGIN AND TRANSMISSION 



perfectly well formed ; whereas, the lower sort, besides their 

 general inferiority, are subject to all the variety of make 

 and figure that is seen in the populace of other countries *." 



In no instance, perhaps, has the personal beauty of a 

 people been more improved, by introducing handsome indi- 

 viduals to breed from, than in the Persians, of whom the no- 

 bility have, by this means, completely succeeded in washing 

 out the stain of their Mongolian origin. " That the blood 

 of the Persians," says Chardin, " is naturally gross, ap- 

 pears from the Guebres, who are a remnant of the ancient 

 Persians, and are an ugly, ill-made, rough-skinned people. 

 This is also apparent from the inhabitants of the provinces 

 in the neighbourhood of India, who are nearly as clumsy 

 and deformed as the Guebres, because they never formed 

 alliances with any other tribes. But, in the other parts of 

 the kingdom, tlie Persian blood is now highly refined by 

 frequent intermixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, 

 two nations which surpass all the world in personal beauty. 

 There is hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born of 

 a Georgian or Circassian mother ; and even the king 

 himself is commonly sprung, on the female side, from one 

 or other of these countries. As it is long since this mix- 

 ture commenced, the Persian women have become very 

 handsome and beautiful, though they do not rival the ladies 

 of Georgia. The men are generally tall and erect, their 

 complexion is ruddy and vigorous, and they have a graceful 

 and an engaging deportment. The mildness of the climate, 

 joined to their temperance in living, has a great influence in 

 improving their personal beauty. This quality they in- 

 herit not from their ancestors ; for, without the mixture 

 mentioned above, the men of rank in Persia, who are de- 

 scendants of the Tatars, would be extremely ugly and de- 

 formed t'" 



There is no one of the varieties above enumerated, which 

 does not exist in a still greater degree in animals confess- 



* Voyage to the Pacific ; book iii. chap. 6. Forster gives a similar rtpre- 

 sentation of the Otaheiteans ; Obs. on a Voyage round the World, p. 229. 

 t Voyage en Perse ; t. 2. p* 34. 



