The practice of painting the body was resorted to, originally, to exaggerate the natural color of the skin. The Indian is red, therefore he paints himself red. The Negro is black, so he paints himself black; and the Caucasian being white, naturally chooses the white pigment. The natives of Tana, who are copper colored, enrich their complexions with a dye a few shades darker? and the Barnabi Islanders, a little lighter than the Tanians, use yellow turmeric to give their bodies a whiter appearance.' The Javanese smear themselves with a yellow cosmetic, but only, as Crawford naively remarks," when in full dress;" and Marco Polo says' of Maabar, on the Coromandel Coast," the children that are born here are black enough, but the blacker they are the more they are thought of; wherefore, from the moment of their birth, the parents do rub them every week with oil of sesame, so that they become black as devils. Moreover they make their gods black, and their devils white, and the images of their saints they do paint black all over."

' The instances in history where both men and women have achieved distinction through physical beauty alone are numerous. Men have been made kings through it, as was Saul among the Hebrews. Ganymede was taken to heaven by Jupiter for his beauty, and Hspphestion was loved by Alexander, and An tin una by Hadrian, for the same cause. Chariclea alone escaped death at the hands of the pirates, for her beauty; and Irene, similarly, at the sack of Constantinople. Rosamond the Fair wy the only one who dared insult Henry II; and Menelaus, coming to kill Helen, as the cause of all the suffering and bloodshed in the Trojan war, dropped his vengeful sword in her presence. Even the animals recognir^d the power of beauty. When Sinalda, the queen, was to be torn in pieces by wild horses we are told by Saxo Grammaticus that "the wild beasts stood in admiration of her person;" the great Alexander married Roxanna, a poor girl, for her beauty alone; the beauty of Esther set fire to the Persian Court; Cleopatra conquered Rome by hers; Delilah, Samson; Judith, Ho!ofernes; Rathsheba, David; Roxalana, Solirnon the Magnificent; the very Devil came from hell to steal Proserpine for no other motive, and when, as Tennyson sings. " Barefooted went the beggar-maid To meet the King, Cophetua, In robe and crown the king stepped down, To meet and greet her on the way."

This custom—exceedingly uncomplimentary to the white race—goes to prove the truth of Von Humboldt's assertion that " in barbarous nations there is a physiognomy peculiar to the tribe, or horde, rather than to any individual;" and our own associated reflection that, as the white woman, by her toilette and cosmetics, tries to realize her standard of beauty, so the various barbarous practices I have mentioned represent the savage desire to approximate theirs.