It seems highly probable that, as has been especially emphasized by Hagen, perfumes were primitively used by women, not as is sometimes the case in civilization, with the idea of disguising any possible natural odor, but with the object of heightening and fortifying the natural odor.[58] If the primitive man was inclined to disparage a woman whose odor was slight or imperceptible,—­turning away from her with contempt, as the Polynesian turned away from the ladies of Sydney:  “They have no smell!”—­women would inevitably seek to supplement any natural defects in this respect, and to accentuate their odorous qualities, in the same way as by corsets and bustles, even in civilization, they have sought to accentuate the sexual saliencies of their bodies.  In this way we may, as Hagen suggests, explain the fact that until recent times the odors preferred by women have not been the most delicate or exquisite, but the strongest, the most animal, the most sexual:  musk, castoreum, civet, and ambergris.

In that interesting novel—­dealing with the adventures of a Jewish maiden at the Persian court of Xerxes—­which under the title of Esther has found its way into the Old Testament we are told that it was customary in the royal harem at Shushan to submit the women to a very prolonged course of perfuming before they were admitted to the king:  “six months with oil of myrrh and six months with sweet odors.” (Esther, Chapter II, v. 12.)

In the Arabian Nights there are many allusions to the use of perfumes by women with a more or less definitely stated aphrodisiacal intent.  Thus we read in the story of Kamaralzaman:  “With fine incense I will perfume my breasts, my belly, my whole body, so that my skin may melt more sweetly in thy mouth, O apple of my eye!”

Even among savages the perfuming of the body is sometimes practiced with the object of inducing love in the partner.  Schellong states that the Papuans of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land rub various fragrant plants into their bodies for this purpose. (Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1899, ht. i, p. 19.) The significance of this practice is more fully revealed by Haddon when studying the Papuans of Torres Straits among whom the initiative in courtship is taken by the women.  It was by scenting himself with a pungent odorous substance that a young man indicated that he was ready to be sued by the girls.  A man would wear this scent at the back of his neck during a dance in order to attract the attention of a particular girl; it was believed to act with magical certainty, after the manner of a charm (Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, pp. 211, 222, and 328).

The perfume which is of all perfumes the most interesting from the present point of view is certainly musk.  With ambergris, musk is the chief member of Linnaeus’s group of Odores ambrosiacae, a group which in