378 Dr Hodgkin on the 



region offered them in ample numbers. The cave-temples 

 and tombs of Upper Egypt sufficiently evince that even in this 

 particular a resemblance existed. 



The inspection of Guanchee mummies brought from the 

 caves of Teneriffe to enrich anatomical collections, contrasting, 

 by their small dimensions, vi^ith those of Egypt, had strongly 

 impressed me with the idea that the extinct inhabitants of the 

 Canaries must have been a people of rather diminutive stature, 

 resembling, in this respect, the Hottentots of Southern Africa, 

 and some of the past, if not of the present, inhabitants of the 

 eastern part of the same continent. 



It was with considerable surprise, that I observed that this 

 idea of the stature of the Guanchees was by no means borne out 

 by the historical account of this people, left on record by the 

 European conquerors of those islands, or their immediate suc- 

 cessors. Our learned countryman, Dr Prichard, when treating 

 of the Guanchees, in connection with those African races to 

 which they evidently belong, speaks of them as of considerable 

 stature, and great bodily power. 



Sabin Berthelot, Secretary of the Geographical Society of 

 Paris, and a member of the Ethnological Society of that city, 

 in a paper presented to the last named Society, has given an 

 elaborate account of this people, compiled from a great variety 

 of early authorities, which abovmds with notices of the extra- 

 ordinary bodily power of this people ; and the indications 

 which he gives of their physical character, are not at all con- 

 sistent with their having been a small race of men. 



Edrisi states, that an expedition from Lisbon, in the com- 

 mencement of the twelfth century, found the natives of the 

 Canaries possessing barks, living together in houses, and un- 

 der the command of a king ; that they were men of high sta- 

 ture, reddish-brown complexion, but indubitably of a White 

 race, since they had long hair. Their women were of extra- 

 ordinary beauty. In 1341, they were again visited by the 

 Portuguese and Spaniards. Most of the inhabitants were then 

 nearly naked ; yet they possessed houses, well-built, of hewn- 

 stone and strong wood-work. They had strong vigorous limbs, 

 but were not remarkably tall. It is said that they were 

 " Satis domestici, ultra quam sint multi ex Hispanis.'' The 



