TRAVELS IN 
carried to such an extravagant degree as to excite laughter. 
If the letter S be considered as one expression of the line of 
beauty to which degrees of approximation are admissible, 
some of the women of this nation are entitled to the first 
rank in point of form. A section of the body, from the 
breast to the knee, forms really the shape of the above letter. 
'.Ihe projection of the posterior part, in one subject, measured 
five inches and a half from the line touching the spine. This 
protuberance consisted entirely of fat, and, when the woman 
walked, it exhibited the most ridiculous appearance imagin- 
able, every step being accompanied with a quivering and 
tremulous motion, as if two masses of jelly had been attached 
behind her. 
When we reflect on the Hottentot nation, which, with all 
its tribes, occupies, as it were, a point only on a great conti- 
aient ; when we consider them as a people differing in so ex- 
traordinary a manner from every other race of men not only 
upon it, but upon the face of the whole globe, the natural 
formation of their persons, their color, language, manners, 
and way of life, being peculiar to themselves, conjecture is 
at a loss to suggest from whence they could have derived 
their origin. Except in the flatness of the nose, which is 
remarkable in the Bosjesman, but not particularly so in the 
common Hottentot, and the short brushy hair, they approach 
nearest in color, and in the construction of the features, to 
the Chinese, how singular soever it may seem t(| trace a like- 
ness between the most civilized and ingenious, and one of 
the: lowest of the human species. If it be admitted, with 
several well-informed missionaries, that the Egyptians and the 
