156 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
are deficient in that mechanical invention which depends on 
a knowledge of mathematical principles ; while they seem 
also incapable of those mental combinations which are re- 
quisite to a perfect acquaintance with naval tactics. The 
Negro, whose observant and imitative powers enable him to 
acquire with ease the details of seamanship, readily becomes 
a mariner, but rarely a commander; and history is silent on 
the nautical prowess of his race. Far behind all these is the 
man of America. Savage or civilized, the sea for him has 
had few charms, and his navigation has been almost exclu- 
sively restricted to lakes and rivers. A canoe excavated from 
a single log, was the principal vessel in use in the new world 
at the period of its discovery. Even the predatory Charibs, 
who were originally derived from the forests of Guayana, 
possessed no other boat than this simple contrivance, in which 
they seldom ventured out of sight of land; and never ex- 
cepting in the tranquil periods of the tropical seas, when they 
sailed from shore to shore, the terror of the feebler natives of 
the surrounding islands. The canoes of the Arouaes of Cuba 
were not more ingeniously contrived than those of the ruder 
Charibs ; which is the more surprising, since their island was 
the centre of a great archipelago, and their local position, 
therefore, in all respects calculated to develope any latent 
nautical propensities. "When Cortez approached, in his ships, 
the Mexican harbour of Tobasco, he was astonished to find, 
even there, the sea-port, as it were, of a mighty empire, the 
same primitive model in the many vessels that skimmed the 
sea before him. Let us follow this conqueror to the imperial 
city itself, surrounded by lakes, and possessed of warlike de- 
fences superior to those of any other American people. The 
Spanish commander, foreseeing that to possess the lake would 
be to hold the keys of the city, had fifteen brigantines built 
at Tlascala; and these being subsequently taken to pieces, 
were borne on men’s shoulders to the lake of Mexico, and 
there re-constructed and launched. The war thus commenced 
as a naval contest; and the Spanish historians, while they 
eulogize the valour of the Mexicans, are constrained to admit 
the utter futility of their aquatic defences: for although the 
subjects of Montezuma, knowing and anticipating the nature 
ee ee ee a 
