680 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



told Mr. Gabb that the Guatusos encountered by him on a military expe- 

 dition in their country, were ordinarily of the color of Indians, but there 

 were some exceptions of comparatively white skins and brownish or 

 reddish hair. Guardin said that when Esparza was sacked by English 

 freebooters a number of the inhabitants, many of whom were white, 

 took refuge in the mountains and were heard of never more. 



A Guatuso boy who lived for awhile at Alajulla was very sullen, and 

 neither coaxing nor threats could induce him to answer questions in re- 

 gard to the language of his people. 



Mr. Gabb said that lately the rubber men had ascended the river in 

 their boats to a point within three days' walk of Las Cruces, on the 

 Pacific side of the Cordillera, the once fearless warriors having tired of 

 the game of bows and arrows against buckshot and bullets. 



The list of authors who have had something to say about these In- 

 dians is quite extensive, but I will give extracts from only one more — 

 the first to allude to white Indians on the Isthmus. Speaking of occa- 

 sional specimens, Wafer says : "They are white and there are of them 

 of both sexes ; yet there are but few of them in comparison of the copper 

 colored, possibly but one to two or three hundred. They difler from the 

 other Indians chiefly in respect of color." " Rather a milk-white, 

 lighter than the color of any European, and much like that of a white 

 horse." " Their bodies are beset all over with a fine short milk-white 

 down." " Their eyebrows are milk-white also, and so is the hair of their 

 heads, and very fine withal."* He reported them smaller and less strong 

 than other Indians, and sluggish during the day, but skipping through 

 the forest as fast by moonlight as others did by daylight. 



In late years the rubber hunters have ascended the river and roamed 

 the country, robbing and shooting until the formerly courageous Guatusos 

 seem utterly cowed. The writer of this note saw two in Nicaragua in 

 1877. They were rather darker than the average Indian. One of them, 

 a boy at Castillo Viejo, was decidedly intelligent, and from him were 

 obtained a number of words of his mother tongue, a list of which was 

 afterwards sent to Mr. Gabb. 



Don Leon Fernandez started on his expedition in April, 1882, and 

 finally settled the question. And now we may look for an early and 

 satisfactory account of babits, «&c., which have probably been preserved 

 nearly as they were when Columbus made his discovery. 



Mr. Squier thought that as natives of Ometepe and Solentiname of 

 Aztec stock, were taken as interpreters on the various expeditions from 

 Nicaragua, the Guatusos would probably prove to be of kindred race; a 

 belief which was strengthened by the fact that the cai)tured Sambos were 

 understood by the Indians of Esparza, who, if not themselves Nahuatls^ 

 had settlements of that people in their neighborhood. 



* A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, by Lionel Wafer. London, 

 1699 ; page 134. 



During five winters spent in the interior of Central America, the writer of this note 

 did not see an Albino among the Indians. 



I 



