In relation to the probable effectiveness of sexual selection among uncivilized peoples in favouring and maintaining a particular type or form of features, hair, etc., characteristic of the race, independently of the life-preserving value of such qualities, I may mention, before quitting this difficult but strangely fascinating subject, a fact observed by a traveller in Africa, and related to me by him. Other similar facts are on record. Among the negroes employed as "porters" by my friend, some thirty in number, was one who had a narrow aquiline nose and thin lips. He was as black and as woolly-haired as any of them, but would if of fair complexion have been regarded by Europeans as a very handsome, fine-featured man. Such cases are not uncommon in parts of Africa, where probably an unrecognized mixture with Arab or Hamite blood has occurred. My friend expected this man to be a favourite, on account of what to him appeared to be "good looks," with the girls of the villages at which he camped during a three months' journey. At every such village, as they journeyed on, the travellers were received with joy and good nature. The negro porters were fêted and made much of by the young women. But one alone was unpopular and regarded with ridicule and dislike. This was the handsome negro with the fine, well-modelled nose and beautiful European lips. The black beauties turned their backs on him, in spite of his amiable character and kindly overtures. They invariably and by open confession preferred the men with the thickest lips, the broadest noses, and the most thoroughly (as we should say) degraded prognathous appearance and disgusting expression. Hence no doubt the young negresses were likely to perpetuate in their offspring the features which are characteristic of their race, and hence it is probable that mere capricious sexual selection of individuals most completely conforming to a preferred type–irrespective of the value of the features preferred–may have great effect in both the selection and the maintenance of the peculiarities of the type. Dark skin may thus have been selected, until it became actually black; a slight curling of the hair, until it became woolly; thickish lips and broadish nose, until they became excessive in thickness and breadth. CHAPTER XIII WHEEL ANIMALCULES