340 DISTINCTION OF TRIBES. be is observed in adults. The idea that the natives may whites tanned by the air and the sun, could never have occurred to a Spanish inhabitant of Quito, or of the banks of the Orinoco. In the north-east of America, on the contrary, we meet with tribes among whom the children are white, and at the age of virility they acquire the bronze colour of the natives of Mexico and Peru. Michikinakoua, chief of the Miamis, had his arms, and those parts of his body not exposed to the sun, almost white. This difference of hue between the parts covered and not covered is never observed among the natives of Peru and Mexico, even in families who live much at their ease, and remain almost constantly within doors. To the west of the Miamis, on the coast opposite to Asia, among the Kolouches and Tchinkitans of Norfolk Sound, grown-up girls, when they have washed their skin, display the white hue of Europeans. This whiteness is found also, according to some accounts, among the mountaineers of Chile.† These facts are very remarkable, and contrary to the opinion so generally spread, of the extreme conformity of organization among the natives of America. If we divide them into Esquimaux and non-Esquimaux, we readily admit that this classification is not more philosophical than that of the ancients, who saw in the whole of the habitable world only Celts and Scythians, Greeks, and Barbarians. When, however, our purpose is to group numerous nations, we gain something by proceeding in the mode of exclusion. All we have sought to establish here is, that, in separating the whole race of Tschougaz-Esquimaux, there remain still, among the coppery-brown Americans, other races, the children of which are born white, without our being able to prove, by going back as far as the history of the Conquest, that they have been mingled with European blood. This fact deserves to be cleared up by tra *Between 54° and 58° of latitude. These white nations have been visited successively by Portlock, Marchand, Baranoff, and Davidoff. The Tchinkitans, or Schinkit, are the inhabitants of the island of Sitka. Vater, Mithridates, vol. iii., p. 2. Marchand, Voyages, vol. ii. + Molina, Saggio sull' Istoria Nat. del Chile, edit. 2, p. 293. May we believe the existence of those blue eyes of the Boroas of Chile and Guayanas of Uruguay, represented to us as nations of the race of Odin? Azara, Voyage, tom. ii. DIFFERENCES OF COLOUR. 341 vellers who may possess a knowledge of physiology, and may have opportunities of examining the brown children of the Mexicans at the age of two years, as well as the white children of the Miamis, and those hordes* on the Orinoco, who, living in the most sultry regions, retain during their whole life, and in the fulness of their strength, the whitish skin of the Mestizoes. In man, the deviations from the common type of the whole race are apparent in the stature, the physiognomy, or the form of the body, rather than on the colour of the skin. It is not so with animals, where varieties are found more in colour than in form. The hair of the mammiferous class of animals, the feathers of birds, and even the scales of fishes, change their hue, according to the lengthened influence of light and darkness, and the intensity of heat and cold. In man, the colouring matter seems to be deposited in the epidermis by the roots or the bulbs of the hair and all sound observations prove, that the skin varies in colour from the action of external stimuli on individuals, and not hereditarily in the whole race. The Esquimaux of Greenland and the Laplanders are tanned by the influence of the air; but their children are born white. We will not decide on the changes which nature may have produced in a space of time exceeding all historical tradition. Reason stops short in these matters, when no longer under the guidance of experience and analogy. All white-skinned nations begin their cosmogony by white men; they allege that the negroes and all tawny people have been blackened or embrowned by the excessive heat of the sun. This theory, adopted by the Greeks,§ though it did not pass without contradiction,|| has been propagated *These whitish tribes are the Guaycas, the Ojos, and the Maquiritares. The circumpolar nations of the two continents are small and squat, though of races entirely different. Adverting to the interesting researches of M. Gaultier, on the organisation of the human skin, John Hunter observes, that in several animals the colorating of the hair is independent of that of the skin. § Strabo, liv. xv. Onesicritus, apud Strabonem, lib. xv. Alexander's expedition appears to have contributed greatly to fix the attention of the Greeks on the great question of the influence of climates. They had learned from 342 ERRONEOUS THEORY. even to our own times. Buffon has repeated in prose what Theodectes had expressed in verse two thousand years before: "that nations wear the livery of the climate in which they live." If history had been written by black nations, they would have maintained what even Europeans have recently advanced,* that man was originally black, or of a very tawny colour; and that mankind have become white in some races, from the effect of civilization and progressive debilitation, as animals, in a state of domestication, pass from dark to lighter colours. In plants and in animals, accidental varieties, formed under our own eyes, have become fixed, and have been propagated;† but nothing proves, that in the present state of human organization, the different races of black, yellow, copper-coloured, and white men, when they remain unmixed, deviate considerably from their primitive type, by the influence of climate, of food, and other external agents. These opinions are founded on the authority of Ulloa.‡ That learned writer saw the Indians of Chile, of the Andes of Peru, of the burning coasts of Panama, and those of Louisiana, situated in the northern temperate zone. He had the accounts of travellers, that in Hindostan the nations of the south were of darker colour than those of the north, near the mountains: and they supposed that they were both of the same race. *See the work of Mr. Prichard, abounding with curious research. "Researches into the Physical History of Man, 1813," p. 239. † For example, the sheep with very short legs, called ancon sheep in Connecticut, and examined by Sir Everard Home. This variety dates only from the year 1791. "The Indians [Americans] are of a copper-colour, which by the action of the sun and the air grows darker. I must remark, that neither heat nor cold produces any sensible change in the colour, so that the Indians of the Cordilleras of Peru are easily confounded with those of the hottest plains; and those who live under the Line cannot be distinguished, by their colour, from those who inhabit the fortieth degree of north and south latitude."-Noticias Americanas. No ancient author has so clearly stated the two forms of reasoning, by which we still explain in our days the differences of colour and features among neighbouring nations, as Tacitus. He makes a just distinction between the influence of climate, and hereditary dispositions; and, like a philosopher persuaded of our profound ignorance of the origin of things, he leaves the question undecided. "Habitus corporum varii; atque ex eo argumenta, seu durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio cœli corporibus habitum dedit."-Agricola, cap. ii. PREPARATIONS FOR A JOURNEY. 343 the good fortune to live at a period when theories were less numerous; and, like me, he was struck by seeing the natives equally bronzed under the Line, in the cold climate of the Cordilleras, and in the plains. Where differences of colour are observed, they depend on the race. We shall soon find on the burning banks of the Orinoco Indians with a whitish skin. Durans originis vis est. CHAPTER X. Second abode at Cumana.—Earthquakes.—Extraordinary Meteors. WE remained a month longer at Cumana, employing ourselves in the necessary preparations for our proposed visit to the Orinoco and the Rio Negro. We had to choose such instruments as could be most easily transported in narrow boats; and to engage guides for an inland journey of ten months, across a country without communication with the coasts. The astronomical determination of places being the most important object of this undertaking, I felt desirous not to miss the observation of an eclipse of the sun, which was to be visible at the end of October: and in consequence I preferred remaining till that period at Cumana, where the sky is generally clear and serene. It was now too late to reach the banks of the Orinoco before October; and the high valleys of Caracas promised less favourable opportunities, on account of the vapours which accumulate round the neighbouring mountains. I was, however, near being compelled by a deplorable occurrence, to renounce, or at least to delay for a long time, my journey to the Orinoco. On the 27th of October, the day before the eclipse, we went as usual, to take the air on the shore of the gulf, and to observe the instant of high water, which in those parts is only twelve or thirteen inches. It was eight in the evening, and the breeze was not yet stirring. The sky was cloudy; and during a dead calm it was excessively hot. We crossed the beach which separates the suburb of the Guayqueria Indians from the embarcadero. I heard some one walking behind us, and on turning, I saw a tall man of the colour of the Zambos, naked to the waist. 344 DANGEROUS RENCONTRE. He held almost over my head a macana, which is a great stick of palm-tree wood, enlarged to the end like a club. I avoided the stroke by leaping towards the left; but M. Bonpland, who walked on my right, was less fortunate. He did not see the Zambo so soon as I did, and received a stroke above the temple, which levelled him with the ground. We were alone, without arms, half a league from any habitation, on a vast plain bounded by the sea. The Zambo, instead of attacking me, moved off slowly to pick up M. Bonpland's hat, which, having somewhat deadened the violence of the blow, had fallen off and lay at some distance. Alarmed at seeing my companion on the ground, and for some moments senseless, I thought of him only. I helped him to raise himself, and pain and anger doubled his strength. We ran toward the Zambo, who, either from cowardice, common enough in people of this caste, or because he perceived at a distance some men on the beach, did not wait for us, but ran off in the direction of the Tunal, a little thicket of cactus and arborescent avicennia. He chanced to fall in running; and M. Bonpland, who reached him first, seized him round the body. The Zambo drew a long knife; and in this unequal struggle we should infallibly have been wounded, if some Biscayan merchants, who were taking the air on the beach, had not come to our assistance. The Zambo seeing bimself surrounded, thought no longer of defence. He again ran away, and we pursued him through the thorny cactuses. At length, tired out, he took shelter in a cow-house, whence he suffered himself to be quietly led to prison. M. Bonpland was seized with fever during the night; but being endowed with great energy and fortitude, and possessing that cheerful disposition which is one of the most precious gifts of nature, he continued his labours the next day. The stroke of the macana had extended to the top of his head, and he felt its effect for the space of two or three months during the stay we made at Caracas. When stooping to collect plants, he was sometimes seized with giddiness, which led us to fear that an internal abscess was forming. Happily these apprehensions were unfounded, and the symptoms, at first alarming, gradually disappeared. The inhabitants of Cumana showed us the kindest interest. It was ascertained that the Zambo was a native of one of the |