The Descent of Man

observable in the erees or nobles in all the other
islands (of the Pacific) is found in the Sandwich
Islands"; but this may be chiefly due to their
better food and manner of life.
The old traveller Chardin, in describing the
Persians, says their "blood is now highly refined
by frequent intermixtures with the Georgians
and Circassians, two nations which surpass
all the world in personal beauty. There is
hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born
of a Georgian or Circassian mother." He adds
that they inherit their beauty, "not from their
ancestors, for without the above mixture, the
men of rank in Persia, who are descendants of
the Tartars, would be extremely ugly." (2. These
quotations are taken from Lawrence ('Lectures
on Physiology,' etc., 1822, p. 393), who attributes
the beauty of the upper classes in England
to the men having long selected the more beautiful
women.) Here is a more curious case; the
priestesses who attended the temple of Venus