From Andrew Smith 26 March 1867
16 Alexander Square
26 March 1867
My Dear Darwin
Until the time you called, when I was confined to bed, I was under the sorrowful belief that I was never more either to see or hear from you.1 Under those circumstances you will easily imagine how much pleased I was to see your hand writing and find that you had me still in remembrance2 Had I been in the enjoyment of my ordinary health when your letter reached me you would soon have had something in return but seeing my condition was then and has been ever since very different you will I know ascribe my delay to what has really caused it and not to indifference.
Now that we have a prospect of some improvement in the weather I hope to soon get out of doors and gain what I very much want—strength.3 I see you are still as active and enthusiastic as ever and you may rest assured that if I can contribute any thing to you you will have it the moment I can venture a visit to my library which I am told is very cold as there has scarcely been a fire in it since December last. I have no doubt but that I will find among my notes something in regard to the use, which male animals, in South Africa, make of their Horns.4 I recollect although I cannot give the full particulars at present that on one occasion we found the skeletons of two Gnu’s Catoblepas Gnu joined together by the manner in which they had entangled their horns no doubt when fighting— They fight desperately especially about the time they are courting the females.5 They are doubtless weapons both of offence & defence as I trust I will, when I get a little stronger, be able to prove to you from my notes which I dare not yet attack I strongly suspect will not find it very easy to give you any thing satisfactory as to what kind of women savage men prefer—6 so far as the Hottentot is concerned I can with certainty say he regards a woman with huge posteriors as first rate7 and he some time ago used to value highly such of the females as had very lengthened Nympæ but now he rather views these ugly developements as undesirable if not as deformities I have been told of some who had them so elongated as that they were able during sexual intercourse to encircle the mans loins and fix him by them until the appetite of both was thoroughly satisfied. I have never seen what would admit of any thing like that being effected still I have seen them pretty long.8 Now you must reconcile this speciality in the Hottentot’s formation and let me know what brought it into existence. You must not say it is artificial seeing it comes without their using weights to bring it into existence and as a proof that it is not a formation of their manifacture it still begins to appear at puberty though there is nothing they would not now do to prevent it. In regard to the large posteriors I may mention that I once came in communication with a woman more than ordinarly gifted in that way and it was all but an impossibility for her to get on her feet when she was sitting unless where she could avail herself of some slope of the ground— Where such was open to her she had to work herself round till her back was directed up the slope and if it was considerable she rose with tolerable facility.— This Lady was esteemed a beauty and was the mother of several children—9
I find I have just done enough to let me know I am an invalid you shall however, please God, have more when I am stronger
Yours most faithfully | Andrew Smith—
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Descent: The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1871.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 1995. Gender, race, and nation: the comparative anatomy of ‘Hottentot’ women in Europe, 1815–1817. In Deviant bodies: critical perspectives on difference in science and popular culture, edited by Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla. Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press.
Nowak, Ronald M. 1999. Walker’s mammals of the world. 6th edition. 2 vols. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
ODNB: Oxford dictionary of national biography: from the earliest times to the year 2000. (Revised edition.) Edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. 60 vols. and index. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2004.
Qureshi, Sadiah. 2004. Displaying Sara Bartmann, the "Hottentot Venus". History of Science 42: 233–57.
Smith, Andrew. 1849. Illustrations of the zoology of South Africa … collected … in the years 1834, 1835, and 1836. 5 pts. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Summary
On Hottentot ideas of beauty in women; their preference for women with large posteriors. [See Descent 2: 345–6.]
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5465
- From
- Andrew Smith
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- London, Alexander Square, 16
- Source of text
- DAR 85: A103–5
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5465,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5465.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15