Sir R. Schomburgk on the 'Natives of Guiana, 3B1 



from the entrance was his ne plus ullra^ being so much fa- 

 tigued, and wanting air so much, that he durst not, without 

 presumption, proceed any farther." I have recommended 

 wax-lights, because they are greatly preferable to lighted 

 bundles of dried, or partially dried, cane stalks, which, when 

 parties are formed for descending into the cave, are often 

 used to the great discomfort of the company, heating the 

 otherwise cool air, and filling it, otherwise pure, with oppres- 

 sive and obscuring smoke. 



Barbadoes, 21«f July 1846. 



On the Natives of Guiana. (With a Plate.) By Sir Robert 

 Schomburgk. Communicated to the Edinburgh New Phi- 

 losophical Journal by the Ethnological Society of London.* 



So great is the similarity in appearance of the aborigines 

 of America, in provinces far removed from each other, and 

 differing in climate and productions, that accurate observers 

 have been struck with the surprising resemblance in figure 

 and aspect. Pedro de Cicca de Leon, who had an extensive 

 knowledge of the American Indians, writes, — " The people, 

 men and women, although they are divided into many na- 

 tions, inhabiting different climates, appear, nevertheless, like 

 the children of one family." 



Though the inhabitants of the northern, compared with 

 the southern parts of America, are tall and robust, a national 

 resemblance may be easily traced, especially in women. In 

 both men and women the head is large in comparison with 

 the body, and the trunk with the limbs. The hair, though 

 occasionally of a red colour, is in general black, straight, 

 coarse, and of luxuriant growth. The iris of the eye is black, 

 the eyelash long, and the eyebrow finely arched and slender. 



Read before the Ethnological Society of London, 27th November 1844. 



