MAN-BEAUTY. 573 



says that their rounded heads and faces are the chief charac- 

 teristics; and, he adds, "the roundness of the whole countenance 

 "is more striking in the women, 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, accord- 

 "ing 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 steatop- 

 ygous; and Sir Andrew Smith is certain that this peculiarity is 

 greatly admired by the men.™ 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, 

 according 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 hateful to a 

 "negro than the opposite form.'"" 



With respect to color, the negroes rallied Mungo Park on the 

 whiteness of his skin and the prominence of his nose, both of 

 which they considered as "unsightly and unnatural conforma- 

 "tions." He in return praised the glossy jet of their skins and the 

 lovely depression of their noses; this they said was, "honey- 

 "mouth," nevertheless they gave him food. The African Moors, 

 also, "knitted their brows and seemed to shudder" at the white- 

 ness 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 whiteness may be 

 attributed, according to this same traveler, partly to the belief 

 held by most negroes that demons and spirits are white, and 

 partly to their thinking it a sign of ill-health. 



The Banyai of the more southern part of the continent are 

 negroes, but "a great many of them are of a light coffee-and-milk 



K Prichard, as taken from Crawturd and Finlayson, 'Phys. Hist, of 

 Mankind,' vol. iv. pp. 534, 535. 



59 Idem illustrissimus viator dixit mihi praeoinotorium vel tabulara 

 foemlnae, quod nobis teterrimum est, quondam permagno aestimari ab 

 liominibu's in hac gente. Nunc res mutata est, et censent talem con- 

 formationem minime optandam esse. 



eo -The Anthropological Review,' November, 1864, p. 237. For addi- 

 tional references, see Waitz, 'Introduot. to Anthropology,' Bng. trans- 

 lat. 1863, vol. i. p. 105. 



