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Polargno was an Esquimaux boy. At the time the things happened to him that I am going to relate to you he was sixteen years old, and as merry a fellow as you could find anywhere. Here is his portrait.
Perhaps you think him ugly, but our ideas of beauty depend a good deal upon what we are accustomed to see around us. You like a white skin, regular features, and fine, soft, wavy hair. But the negroes of Central Africa do not admire this style in the least. They prefer thick lips, flat noses, shining black skins, and hair as tightly twisted and as wiry as possible. And Polargno's friends looked upon him as a boy of a remarkably fine appearance, for they considered it very proper that he should have a stubby nose, thick lips, small eyes, and lank, coarse hair. His parents thought him handsome, but his mother was grieved because he was not quite as fat as other Esquimaux boys of his age. To be very beautiful in the eyes of an Esquimaux one must be very fat. Polargno's father was not much taller than his son, but he was very much broader. He consoled his wife, however, by assuring her that he was no larger than Polargno at the same age.