From W. W. Reade 7 September 1872
11 St. Mary Abbot’s | Terrace | Kensington
Sept. 7. ’72
My dear Sir
I find a passage in Andersson’s Lake Ngami p 435 about the tears in laughing which you may prefer to a verbal statement for purposes of quotation— The people in question are Bechuanas—a negro or negroid race.
“The mirth became so outrageous as to throw the party into convulsions many casting themselves at full length on the ground with their hands tightly clasped across their stomachs as if in fear of bursting whilst their greasy cheeks became furrowed with tears trickling down in streams—
At p 470 he says of the same people “Unless it forces tears into their eyes they look upon snuff as “worthless”.1
Emerson Tennant in his description of the elephants captured in a corral mentions their shedding tears.2 Gordon Cuming I think notices the same in a wounded giraffe—3 I have seen an African Pack-ass shed a tear on the bit being placed in its mouth for the first time.
Do not trouble to acknowledge the receipt of this but pray mention any point of this kind you wish me to look out for in my reading.
I remain | yours very truly | Winwood Reade
CD annotations
Footnotes
Bibliography
Andersson, Charles John. 1856. Lake Ngami: or, explorations and discoveries during four years’ wanderings in the wilds of South Western Africa. London: Hurst and Blackett.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
EB: The Encyclopædia Britannica. A dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information. 11th edition. 29 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1910–11.
Expression 2d ed.: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. Edited by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray. 1890.
Expression: The expression of the emotions in man and animals. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1872.
Frost, John. 1853. Wild scenes in a hunter’s life; including Cumming’s adventures among the lions, and other wild animals of Africa, etc. Auburn: Derby and Miller.
Gordon-Cumming, Roualeyn George. 1856. The lion hunter of South Africa. Five years’ adventures in the far interior of South Africa. Revised and condensed edition. London: John Murray.
Tennent, James Emerson. 1861. Sketches of the natural history of Ceylon, with narratives and anecdotes illustrative of the habits and instincts of the mammalia, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects &c. London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts.
Summary
Sends extract [from Carl Johan Andersson, Lake Ngami (1856)] on expression.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-8514
- From
- William Winwood Reade
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kensington
- Source of text
- DAR 176: 62
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp ††
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 8514,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-8514.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 20
