idea that female beauty of lip had been attained by the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus alone. This custom prevails throughout the country of the Maravi, and no one could see it without confessing that fashion had never led women to a freak more mad."[1]
There is a tribe near the coast of Guinea, who consider a flat nose the paragon of beauty; and at early infancy, the child's nose is put in press, that it may not appear ugly when it arrives to years of maturity.
Many of the tribes in the interior of Africa mark the face, arms, and breasts; these, in some instances, are considered national identifications. Knocking out the teeth is a common practice, as will be seen by reference to Dr. Livingstone's travels. Living upon roots, as many of the more degraded tribes do, has its influence in moulding the features.
There is a decided coincidence between the physical characteristics of the varieties of man, and their moral and social condition; and it also appears that their condition in civilized society produces marked modification in the intellectual qualities of the race. Religious superstition and the worship of idols have done much towards changing the features of the Negro from the original Ethiopian of Meroe, to the present inhabitants of the shores of the Zambesi.
The farther the human mind strays from the ever-*living God as a spirit, the nearer it approximates to the beasts; and as the mental controls the physical, so ignorance and brutality are depicted upon the countenance.
As the African by his fall has lost those qualities
- ↑ "Livingstone's Travels," p. 366.
