ABSTRACT
Amongst all the forms of living and bodily creatures that of man is the fairest and the most perfect. Which was very decent both to the creature and to the Creator, seeing that man is placed in this world to command all that is here beneath. But, although that Nature endeavoureth herself always to do good, notwithstanding she is sometimes short and forced in her actions, and thereof it cometh that we have monsters and ugly things contrary to the ordinary rule of others. Yea, even sometimes after that Nature hath done her office, we help by our arts to render that which she hath made ridiculous and misshapen; as, for example, the Brazilians are born as fair as the common sort of men, but coming out of the womb they are made deformed in squeezing of their nose, which is the chiefest part wherein consisteth the beauty of man. True it is that as in certain countries they praise the long noses, in others the hawk noses, so among the Brazilians it is a fair thing to be flat-nosed, as also among the Moors of Africa, which we see to be all of the same sort. And with these large nostrils, the Brazilians are accustomed to make themselves yet more deformed by art, making great holes in their cheeks and under the lower lip, for to put therein green stones and of other colours, of the bigness of a tester; so that, those stones being taken away, it is a hideous thing to see those people. But in Florida, and everywhere on this side the tropic of Cancer, our savages be generally goodly men, as they be in Europe; if there be any short-nosed one, it is a rare thing. They be of a good stature, and I have seen no dwarfs there, nor any that drew near to it. Notwithstanding (as I have said elsewhere), in the mountains of the Iroquois, which are beyond the great fall of the great river of Canada, there is a certain nation of savages, little men, valiant and feared everywhere, which are more often assailers than defenders. But although that where we dwelt the men be of a good height, nevertheless I have seen none so tall as Monsieur de Poutrincourt, whose tallness becometh him very well. I will not speak here of the Patagonians, a people which is beyond the river of Plate, whom Pighafetta in his voyage about the world saith to be of such an height that the tallest among us could scarce reach to their girdle. The same is out of the limits of our New France. But I will willingly come to the other circumstances of body of our savages, seeing the subject calleth us thereunto.
