Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary Islands. 377 



had thrown before us a condensed abstract of the distribution 

 of African tribes ; and the light of history, from the most dis- 

 tant period to the present time, gave us a hasty glance at their 

 ascertainable ties of kindred. The striking points became ob- 

 vious, but the details demand and merit closer and prolonged 

 inspection. 



From our friend Dr Latham we have repeatedly had a lucid 

 exposition of the fact, that languages differing widely as to the 

 words of which they are composed, may be so similar, with re- 

 spect to their grammatical construction, that the philologian 

 could not hesitate to unite them in a common group. If 1 am 

 not mistaken, the African languages constitute one of the best 

 marked and circumscribed of these groups ; and I am glad to 

 be able to add to the value of the necessarily meagre paper 

 which I am offering on the present occasion, the results of Dr 

 Latham's examination of the fragments of the ancient lan- 

 guage spoken in the Canary Islands. You will, doubtless, be 

 led to infer from them, as I had previously done from an in- 

 quiry respecting the stature of the Guanchees, that the Canary 

 Islands have been visited by different branches of the African 

 stock, prior to their invasion by the Spaniards and Portuguese, 

 who in a short time have extirpated all living traces of the 

 races which preceded them. We have, therefore, merely a 

 few dry bones and scanty remains of nascent civilization to aid 

 in the solution of the ethnological problem which I announced 

 in the commencement of this paper. 



It is well known, that the race which formerly inhabited 

 the Island of Teneriffe resembled the ancient Egyptians in 

 this particular, that they carefully preserved the bodies of their 

 dead, having recourse to processes by which decomposition 

 was retarded. There was also some resemblance in the desti- 

 nation of the bodies so prepared, as they were placed in regular 

 order, in the erect posture, in dark and secluded chambers 

 expressly devoted to this purpose, although the Egyptians 

 reared those gigantic structures, to which Martial has applied 

 the term of OarOara miracula, and thus obtained sepulchral 

 chambers which were altogether artificial ; whereas the Guan- 

 chees took advantage of the natural caverns which their volcanic 



