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subject to wrinkles. mon to see in Mexico, in the temperate zone half way up the Cordillera, natives, and especially women, reach a hundred years of age. This old age is generally comfortable; for the Mexican and Peruvian Indians preserve their muscular strength to the last. While I was at Lima the Indian Hilario Pari died at the village of Chiguata, four leagues distant from the town of Arequipa, at the age of 143. He remained united in marriage for 90 years to an Indian of the name of Andrea Alea Zar, who attained the age of 117. This old Peruvian went, at the age of 130, from three to four leagues daily daily on foot. He became blind 13 years before his death, and left. behind him of 12 children but one daughter, of 77 years of age.

It is by no means uncom

grey hairs and a beard: pero hay dos señales que manifiestan quando son de edad muy abanzada: la una las canas, y la otra las barbas. The whole passage runs thus, "Son per le general de larga vida, aunque dificil de averiguar el numero de sus años; pero hay dos señales que manifiestan quando son de edad muy abanzada; la una las canas, y la otra las barbas: aquellas no empiezcan à parecer hasta que estan en 70 años ò cerca de ellas estas otras hasta que passan de 60, y siempre son pocas; y asi quando se ven del todo encanecidos, y que las pocas barbas le estan igualmente, se jusga que pasan de un siglo." (Noticias Americanas, p. 323.) The accuracy of Ulloa, and the opportunities which he had of observing every variety of Indian race, are very universally known. Father Gumilla gives an account somewhat similar to Ulloa's. Trans.

The copper-coloured Indians enjoy one great physical advantage, which is undoubtedly owing to the great simplicity in which their ancestors lived for thousands of years. They are subject to almost no deformity. I never saw a hunchbacked Indian; and it is extremely rare to see any of them who squint, or are lame in the arm or leg. In the countries where the inhabitants suffer from the goire, this affection of the thyroid gland is never observed among the Indians, and seldom among the Mestizoes. Martin Salmeron, the famous Mexican giant, belongs to the last class, though erroneously said to be an Indian, whose height is 2,224 metres, or six feet ten inches, and 23 lines of Paris *. He is the son of a Mestizo, who married an Indian woman of the village of Chilapa el Grande, near Chi'pansingo †.

When we examine savage hunters or warriors we are tempted to believe that they are all well made, because those who have any natural deformity either perish from fatigue or are exposed

* 87,521 inches, or 7 feet 3 inches. Trans.

+ Such is the real size of this giant, the best proportioned whom I have ever seen. He is an inch taller than the giant of Torneo, seen at Paris in 1735. The American Gazettes make Salmeron 7 feet 1 inch of Paris measure. Gazetta de Goatimala, 18CO. Agosto, Annales de Madrid, t. IV. No. 12. The human species appears to vary from 2 feet 4 inches to 7 feet 8 inches, or from 0, 757 to 2m, 489.

(Schreber Mamm. t. I. p. 27).

M

by their parents; but the Mexican and Peruvian Indians, those of Quito and New Grenada, are agriculturists, who can only be compared with the class of European peasantry. We can have no doubt then that the absence of natural deformities among them is the effect of their mode of life, and of the constitution peculiar to their race. All the men of very swarthy complexion, those of Mongol and American origin, and especially the negros, participate in the same advantage. We are inclined to believe that the Arab-European race possesses a greater flexibility of organization, and that it is easier modified by a great number of exterior causes, such as variety of aliments, climates, and habits, and consequently has a greater tendency to deviate from its original model.

What we have been stating as to the exterior form of the indigenous Americans confirms the accounts of other travellers of the striking analogy between the Americans and the Mongol ace. This analogy is particularly evident in the colour of the skin and hair, in the defective beard, high cheek bones, and in the direction of the eyes. We cannot refuse to admit that the human species does not contain races resembling one another more than the Americans, Mongo's, Ma:tcheoux, and Malays. But the resemblance of some features does not constitute an identity of race. If the hieroglyphical paintings and traditions of the inhabitants of Anahuac, collected by the first con

querors, appear to indicate that a swarm of wandering tribes spread from the north-west towards the south, we must not therefore conclude that all the Indians of the new continent are of Asiatic origin. In fact, osteology teaches us that the cranium of the American differs essentially from that of the Mongol: the former exhibits a facial line, more inclined, though straighter, than that of the negro; and there is no race on the globe in which the frontal bone is more depressed backwards, or which has a less projecting forehead *. The cheekbones of the American are almost as prominent as those of the Mongol; but the contours are more rounded, and the angles not so sharp. The

* This extraordinary flatness is to be found among nations to whom the means of producing artificial deformity are totally unknown, as is proved by the crania of Mexican Indians, Peruvians, and Atures, brought over by M. Bonpland and myself, of which several were deposited in the Museum of Natural History at Paris. I am inclined to believe that the barbarous custom which prevails among several hordes of pressing the heads of children between two boards had its origin in the idea that beauty consists in such a form of the frontal bone as to characterise the race in a decided manner. The negros give the preference to the thickest and most prominent lips; the Calmucks to turned-up noses; and the Greeks in the statues of heroes have raised the facial line from 85° to 100° beyond nature. (Cuvier, Anat. Comparee, t. II. p. 6.) The Aztecs, who never disfigure the heads of their children, represent their principal divinities, as their hieroglyphical manuscripts prove, with a head much more flattened than any I have ever seen among the Caribs.

under jaw is larger than the negros, and its branches are less dispersed than the Mongols. The occipital bone is less curved (bombé), and the protuberances which correspond to the cerebellum, to which the system of M. Gall attaches great importance, are scarcely sensible. Perhaps this race of copper-coloured men, comprehended under the general name of American Indians, is a mixture of Asiatic tribes and the aborigines of this vast continent; and it is not unlikely also that the figures with enormous acquiline noses, observed in the hieroglyphical Mexican paintings preserved at Vienna, Veletri, and Rome, as in my historical fragments, indicated the physiognomy of some races now extinct. The Canadian savages call themselves Metoktheniakes, born of the sun, without allowing themselves to be persuaded of the contrary by the black roles *, a name which they give to the missionaries.

As to the moral faculties of the Indians, it is diffi cult to appretiate them with justice, if we only consider this long oppressed cast in their present state of degradation. The better sort of Indians, among whom a certain degree of intellectual culture might be supposed, perished in great part at the commencement of the Spanish conquest, the victims of European ferocity. The Christian fanaticism broke out in a particular manner against the

* Volney, t. II. p. 438.

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