Their figure was above
criticism, and their skin, as is usually the case among the young
women, was as soft as velvet. When these black daughters of Eve
smiled and showed their beautiful white teeth, and when their
eyes peeped coquettishly from beneath the curly hair which hung
in quite the modern fashion down their foreheads," Lumholtz
realized that even here women could exert the influence ascribed
by Goethe to women generally. (C. Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p.
132.) Much has, again, been written about the beauty of the
American Indians. See, e.g., an article by Dr. Shufeldt, "Beauty
from an Indian's Point of View," _Cosmopolitan Magazine_, April,
1895. Among the Seminole Indians, especially, it is said that
types of handsome and comely women are not uncommon. (_Clay_
MacCauley, "Seminole Indians of Florida," _Fifth Annual Report of
the Bureau of Ethnology_, 1883-1884, pp. 493 et seq.)
There is much even in the negress which appeals to the European
as beautiful. "I have met many negresses," remarks Castellani
(_Les Femmes au Congo_, p. 2), "who could say proudly in the
words of the Song of Songs, 'I am black, but comely.
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