LOXGEYITY OF THE I^^DIANS. 28 i 



for the Mexican and Peruvian Indians preserved their 

 muscular strength to the last. While Humboldt was at 

 Lima the Indian Hilario Pari died at the village of Chi- 

 guata, at the age of one hundred and forty- three. He 

 remained united in marriage for ninety years to an 

 Indian of the name of Andrea Alea Zar, who attained 

 the age of one hundred and seventeen years. This old 

 Peruvian went, at the age of one hundred and thirty, 

 from three to four leagues daily on foot. He became 

 blind thirteen years before his death, and of twelve chil- 

 dren left behind him but one daughter, of seventy-seven 

 years of age. 



The copper-coloured Indians enjoy one great physical 

 advantage, which is undoubtedly owing to the great sim- 

 plicity in which their ancestors lived for thousands of 

 years. They are subject to almost no deformity. Hum- 

 boldt never saw a hunchbacked Indian ; and it was ex- 

 tremely rare to see one who squinted, or was lame in the 

 arm or leg. In the countries where the inhabitants suffer 

 from the goitre^ it never prevails among the Indians, and 

 seldom among the Mulattoes. 



The ludians of Mexico adhered to their ancient cus- 

 toms, manners, and opinions, especially their religious 

 ones, with great obstinacy. The introduction of Chris- 

 tianity into the country had no other effect than the 

 substituting of new ceremonies for the old — the symbols 

 of a gentle and humane religion for the ceremonies of a 

 sanguinary worship. They received from the hands of 

 their conquerors new laws and new divinities : their van- 

 quished gods appeared to them to yield to the gods of the 

 strangers. In such a complicated mythology as that of 

 the Mexicans, it was easy to find out an affinity between 



