the cause of this difference, by imparting greater 

 vigour to their frames. The features of both 

 are regular, and neither of them have ever dis- 

 covered that capricious whim, so common to 

 savages of both the old and new world, of at- 

 tempting to improve nature by disfiguring their 

 faces, with a view of rendering themselves more 

 beautiful or more formidable. Of course, M. 

 Buffon has been led into an error in asserting, in 

 his treatise on man, that the Chilians are accus- 

 tomed to enlarge their ears. 



Their complexion, like that of thc^other Ame- 

 rican nations, is of a reddish brown, but it is of 

 a clearer hue, and readily changes to white. A 

 tribe who dwell in the province of Baroa are of 

 a clear white and red, without any intermixture 

 of the copper colour. As they differ in no other 

 respect from the other Chilians, this variety may 

 be owing to some peculiar influence of their 

 climate, or to the greater degree of civilization 

 which they possess ; it is, however, attributed by 

 the Spanish writers to the prisoners of that 

 ^nation, who were confined In this province 

 fiuring the unfortunate war in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. But as the Spanish prisoners were equally 

 distributed among the other provinces of their 

 conquerors, none of whose inhabitants are white, 

 this opinion would seem to be unfounded. Be- 

 sides, as the first Spaniards who came to Chili 

 were all from the southern piovinces of Spain, 



