Chap. XIX. 
BEAUTY. 
351 
liable that negroes would ever prefer the “ most beau- 
“ tiful European woman, on the mere grounds of physical 
admiration, to a good-loohing uegress .” 1 ’ 2 
The truth of the principle, long ago insisted on by 
Humboldt , 63 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 
by many nations ; and there can bo little doubt that this 
has been practised, especially in N. and S. America, in 
order to exaggerate some natural and admired pecu- 
harity. Many American Indians are known to admire a 
bead 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 ; 
and it is their constant practice to gather the hair 
into a knot on the top of the head, for the sake, as 
Hr. Wilson remarks, “ of increasing the apparent eleva- 
“ tion of the favourite conoid form.” The inhabitants 
°f 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, 
62 The Fucgians, as I have been informed by a missionary who long 
resided 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 he 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. 1 should 
add that a most experienced observer, Capt. Burton, believes that a 
Woman whom we consider beautiful is admired throughout (he world, 
‘ Anthropological Keview,’ March, 1864, p. 245. 
63 ‘Personal Narrative,’ Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 518, and elsewhere. 
Mantegazza, in his ‘Yiaggi e Studi,’ 1867, strongly insists on this 
s ame principle. 
