shape,
colour, in manners, and even in oddity of customs, they are undoubtedly of the same race of men.
The practice of offering their women to strangers, and of being pleased when they are thought
worthy of caresses, may proceed from a consciousness of their own deformity as well as that of
their women. In appearance, the woman, whom a stranger has accepted, they afterwards respect
for her superior beauty. At any rate it is certain, although remote from each other, and separated
by a great sea, the custom is general in all the above countries. We even meet with it among the
Crim Tartars, the Calmucks, and among several other nations of Siberia and of Tartary, where
personal deformity is almost as conspicuous as in those of the North. In all the neighbouring
nations, on the other hand, as in China, and in Persia,* where the women are remarkable for
beauty, the men are also remarkable for jealousy.
In
* La Boulai tells us, that in order to prevent all cause of jealousy, when the women of Schach die, the place of their interment is industriously kept secret, in like manner as the ancient Egyptians delayed the embalment of their wives for several days after their decease, that the surgeons might have no temptation.