90 REPORT — 1851. 



The Rajah adds, " Some letters from the Kyan chiefs of Barram have lately been 

 printed by order of the House of Commons, and will point out where the real danger 

 to the progress of geographical research is to be apprehended." 



On the Ethnology a7id Archeology of the Norse and Saxons, in reference to 

 Britain. By W. D. Saull, F.G.S., Ethn. Sac. 



Ethnological Researches in Santo Domingo. By Sir R. Schomburgk*. 



The following are extracts from tlie letter of the 15th of March 1851, addressed 

 bv Sir R. Schomburgk to Prince Albert. — "it is a melancholy fact, that of the millions 

 of natives who at the discovery peopled the island of Santo Domingo, not a single 

 pure descendant now exists ; but a careful observer of the mixed races that in a great 

 measure form the population of the Dominican republic will occasionally trace 

 among them the characteristic features of the aborigines. Some stocks of the 

 human race retain their characteristics much more tenaciously than others ; the 

 peculiarities of one being lost in a few generations, and those of another being 

 transmitted through several. I have never- seen that tenacity more displayed than 

 among the mixed race who to this day are called 'Indios' in Santo Domingo, and 

 in whom the peculiarities of the pure Indian have preserved themselves for more than 

 two centuries. This observation refers chiefly to the female sex of the so-called 

 ' Indios.' Their symmetrical forms, the piue olive complexion and soft skin, their 

 large black eyes, and the most luxuriant hair of an ebony colour, attest at once 

 their descent from the Indian stock. We are told by the historians that the last 

 remnant of the Indians, amounting to from three to four hundred, retired under 

 Enrique, the last of the Caciques of St. Domingo, to Boya, a village about thirty miles 

 to the N.N.E. of the city. Enrique had been converted to the Christian religion, 

 and the Emperor Charles the Fifth ensured to this remnant of the aborigines civil 

 rights and conferred upon him the title of Don. Tliis miserable fragment of a once 

 powerful nation soon vanished from the earth, borne down by their misfortunes and 

 the diseases introduced by the Spaniards. The extirpation of the pure Indian race 

 prevented me from making comparative inquiries between the still existing tribes of 

 Guiana and those that once inhabited St. Domingo. My researches were therefore 

 restricted to what history and the few and poor monuments have transmitted to us 

 of their customs and manners. Their language lives only in the names of places, 

 rivers, trees, and fruits, but all combine in declaring that the people who bestowed 

 these names were identical with the Carib and Arawaak tribes of Guiana. 



" An excursion to the calcareous caverns of Ponmiier, about ten leagues to the west 

 of the city of Santo Domingo, afforded me the examination of some picture-writings 

 executed by the Indians after the arrival of the Spaniards. These remarkable caves, 

 which are already in themselves of high interest, are situated within the district 

 over which, at the landing of the Spaniards, the fair Indian Catalina reigned as 

 Cacique. Oviedo relates that she knew how to captivate the Arragonin, Miguel Diaz. 

 In consequence of a brawl with one of his companions, whom he supposed ihat he 

 had mortally wounded, Diaz fled from Isabella and found an asylum at Catalina's 

 village. Fearful of losing her lover, who after a few months seemed to long to 

 return to his companions and his accustomed occupations, Catalina employed the 

 most powerful means she could have resorted to in order to induce the Spaniards to 

 settle within her own territory, concluding naturally that this would ensure the con- 

 tinued presence of Diaz, She related, therefore, that the adjacent mountains pos- 

 sessed rich mines, and drew his attention to the superior fertility of the soil, which 

 so much surpassed that upon which Columbus had founded Isabella; moreover that 

 the river Ozama afforded at its entrance a secure and fine harbour. Diaz returned 

 with this information to Isabella, where he found to his joy the man recovered from 

 his wounds whom he thought he had killed, and the report of the rich mines produced 

 him an easy pardon. The Adelantado, Bartholomew, who governed in the absence 

 of his brother, visited the district himself, and erected, in 1496, a fortified tower in 



* Communicated by H.R.H. Prince Albert. 



