Summary

Going to the Ashanti war as Times correspondent.

Summary

Will answer CD’s queries from Africa.

Reports extreme amazement of some natives in Gabon upon seeing a white man for the first time.

Summary

Horned rams of Guinea sheep.

CD’s queries about expression are too difficult for him to answer.

Summary

Observations on expression: women gnash teeth when sexually excited. W. Africans do not kiss.

Summary

Glad Mrs Darwin likes his preface, but fears she will not like his tone on religion.

Summary

Beginning work on his African travels [The African sketch-book (1873)].

Summary

His book has received bad reviews; therefore CD’s letter cheers him up.

Summary

WWR is beginning to appreciate CD’s warnings against his polemical writing.

Summary

Is tired of inaction and so is leaving for Egypt and the East.

Summary

Various comments on Descent;

on suicide on Gold Coast;

on mulattoes’ not being prolific.

Summary

W. C. Wells’s theory relating black skin-colour and immunity to malaria may be true. Has seen Negroes come down with fever, but these were generally light in colour.

Summary

The Negro’s idea of beauty is the same as white man’s.

Believes the Jollops select for blackness.

Native immunity from coast fever is not complete.

Has found stone instruments.

Summary

Has just finished his work [? The martyrdom of man (1872)]. The new points are: (1) Negroes have whiskers; (2) their music is sometimes agreeable; (3) the Kaffirs are Negroes.

Summary

Sending sheets of his forthcoming work on Africa [Martyrdom of man (1872)] with views that differ from CD’s on music and sexual selection.

The Pall Mall Gazette will review the new [6th] edition of the Origin, together with Mivart’s Genesis of species [1871].

Summary

Expressions of emotions in Gold Coast tribes.

Differences between males and females in sexual characteristics.

Castrated rams lose horns and manes.

Female members of tribes have no difficulty getting the husbands they want.

Summary

Has completed his book [The African sketch-book (1873)].

Summary

Brief observations on expression in Africa.

Alexander Agassiz is a good investigator, who differs with his father on evolution.

The behaviour of women and savages is a little easier to understand than that of civilised men.

Summary

Could not go up the Niger, as trading steamers are trying to keep their trade in the dark.

Has seen several albinos, but no blushing. Thinks blacks do blush.

Summary

Surprised at Mivart’s harsh review [Q. Rev. 131 (1871): 47–90], considering courteous tone of his book. Assures CD he has not been converted by Mivart.

Summary

Prefers W. C. Wells’s explanation of the formation of the Nehro type to CD’s sexual selection.

Outlines his view of the origin of man by natural selection.