440 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. XI. 



low that the Indians who had fled were supposed to be dwarfs 1 ." 

 They are a peaceful industrious nation, who ply several trades, 

 manufacture their own copper boilers for making sugar, weave 

 ponchos and straw hats, and when they want blue trousers they 

 plant a row of indigo, and rows of white and yellow cotton when 

 striped trousers are in fashion. Hence the question arises, whether 

 these clever little people may not after all have originally pos- 

 sessed some defective numeral system, (such as that of their ruder 

 Mataco neighbours who count up to 4), which was merely 

 superseded by the Spanish numbers. 



These Matacos (Mataguayos) of the Bermejo, with the savage 

 Tobas between that river and the Pilcomayo, were 

 3 ' tne orj ly tribes of the Gran Chaco region visited 



by Ehrenreich, who notices their disproportionately 

 short arms and legs, and excessive development of the thorax 2 . 

 To judge from the photographs taken by this observer the 

 expression especially of the Tobas is strikingly European, although 

 crossings can hardly be suspected amongst a people who have 

 hitherto maintained their independence, and kept aloof from 

 the few white intruders in their secluded domain. They would 

 thus seem to afford strong support to Ehrenreich's remarks on 

 the general resemblance of so many South American aborigines to 

 the Caucasic type (see above). 



1 Markham, J.istofthe Tribes, p. 251. 



2 Urbewohncr Brasiliens, p. 101. 



