ANTHROPOLOGY. 
409 
mention other peculiar and, to our, or perhaps I may 
say your notions—for I am personally without pre¬ 
judices-—ungraceful developments, then you might 
aptly compare his ideal representation with the living 
Masai; or if you could discover specimens of these 
people who possessed the fleshy effeminate contours, 
the sexless countenance of vacuous beauty attributed 
to the god of poetry, music, and prophecy, you might 
more fittingly describe them as dark statues of Apollo. 
As it is, the physical perfection of these East African 
beef-eating, bloodthirsty warriors is of the prize-fighter’s 
or the rowing-man’s ideal, rather than the aesthete’s. 
The full-grown Masai of pure blood generally 
attains six feet in height by the age of seventeen, 
though at that time he is often spindly and cumber¬ 
some, an ungraceful hobbledehoy. Three years, how¬ 
ever, of an exclusive diet of milk, blood, and half-raw 
beef-steaks, combined with a rigorous training in 
warlike and athletic exercises, have developed him into 
a sinewy, muscular man of admirable proportions, 
broad of chest, with a smallish head, a graceful neck, 
and limbs whose muscles seem hard as iron. There 
is no fat on his body. I cannot say that his hands 
and feet are always well-shaped. Though the instep 
is high, the foot spreads out rather broadly and 
squarely at the toes; the minor ones advancing nearly 
in a line with the big toe. 
Their faces are somewhat Mongoloid in look, at first 
sight. The rather narrow, slanting eyes, the promi¬ 
nent cheek-bones, and the pointed chin suggest that 
impression. On the other hand, the nose is often 
beautifully shaped, with high bridge and delicately- 
carved nostrils, which obey sensitively the passing 
feelings of their owner, quivering and dilating with 
