CONCERNING- EYES 189 



the world one cannot help thinking that the vari- 

 ous races and tribes of men, differing in the color 

 of their skins and in the climates and conditions 

 they live in, ought to have differently-colored eyes. 

 In Brazil, I was greatly struck with the magnifi- 

 cent appearance of many of the negro women I 

 saw there; well-formed, tall, majestic creatures, 

 often appropriately clothed in loose white gowns 

 and white turban-like headdresses ; while on their 

 round polished blue-black arms they wore silver 

 armlets. It seemed to me that pale golden irides, 

 as in the intensely black tyrant-bird Lichenops 

 perspicillata, would have given a finishing glory 

 to these sable beauties, completing their strange 

 unique loveliness. Again in that exquisite type of 

 female beauty which we see in the white girl wittt 

 a slight infusion of negro blood, giving the grace- 

 ful frizzle to the hair, the purple-red hue to the 

 lips, and the delicate dusky terra-cotta tinge to 

 the skin, an eye more suitable than the dark dull 

 brown would have been the intense orange-brown 

 seen in some lemur's eyes. For many very dark- 

 skinned tribes nothing more beautiful than the 

 ruby-red iris could be imagined; while sea-green 

 eyes would have best suited dusky-pale Poly- 

 nesians and languid peaceful tribes like the one 

 described in Tennyson's poem: 



And round about the keel with faces pale, 

 Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 

 The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 



