€iiap. XIX. 
BEAUTY. 
351 
bable tlmt negroes would ever prefer tbe most beau- 
tiful European woman, on the mere grounds of physical 
admiration, to a good-looking negress.”^^ 
The truth of the principle, long ago insisted on by 
Humboldt, that man admires and often tries to exag- 
gerate whatever characters nature may have given him, 
is shewn in many ways. The practice of beardless races 
extirpating every trace of a beard, and generally all the 
hairs on the body, offers one illustration. The skull has 
been greatly modified during ancient and modern times 
Ty many nations ; and there can be little doubt that this 
has been practised, especially in N. and S. America, in 
order to exaggerate some natural and admired pecu- 
liarity. Many American Indians are known to admire a 
head flattened to such an extreme degree as to appear 
to us like that of an idiot. The natives on the north- 
western coast compress the head into a pointed cone ; 
nnd it is their constant practice to gather the hair 
into a knot on the top of the head, for the sake, as 
Dr. Wilson remarks, of increasing the apparent eleva- 
tion of the favourite conoid form.” The inhabitants 
of Arakhan admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in 
order to produce it, they fasten a plate of lead on the 
heads of the new-born children.” On the other hand. 
The Fuegians, as I have been informed by a missionary who long 
Tesided with them, consider European women as extremely beautiful ; 
but from what we have seen of the judgment of the other aborigines of 
America, I cannot but think that this must be a mistake, unless indeed 
the statement refers to the few Fuegians who have lived for some time 
with Europeans, and who must consider us as superior beings. I should 
add that a most experienced observer, Capt. Burton, believes that a 
woman whom we consider beautiful is admired throughout the world, 
‘ Anthropological Eeview,’ Mai ch, 1864, p. 245. 
63 t Personal Narrative,’ Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 518, and elsewhere. 
Mantegazza, in his ‘ Viaggi e Studi,’ 1867, strongly insists on this 
same principle. 
