ANIMALS. 313 



the principal employments of the women of Thibet, is to redden 

 the teeth with herbs, and to make their 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 ob- 

 ject of desire must have little eyes, nearly closed, feet extremely 

 small, and a waist far from being shapely. There are nations of 

 the American Indians that flatten the heads of their children, 

 by keeping them while yoimg 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 s very extraordinary taste for beauty. A flat nose, 

 thick lips, and a jet black complexion, are there the most indul- 

 gent gifts of Nature. Such, indeed, they are all, in some degree, 

 found to possess. However, 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 whole body and visage is often 

 scarred with a variety of monstrous figiu-es ; which is not done 

 without a great pain, and repeated incision : and even sometimes 

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

 mark the various arts which caprice or custom has employed 

 to distort 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 heightening beauty. Painting, pow~ 

 dering, 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 look- 

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

 gaze with pleasure. 



