374 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is that gives such fascination to the descriptions left us by those who 

 first saw men who were living very much as must have done the 

 owners of the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal skulls, and that lends 

 such peculiar interest to all vestiges and traces that have been pre- 

 served of a people secluded from all contact with those more enlight- 

 ened than themselves. 



Fortunately, there is considerable material available for so inter- 

 esting a study. Besides relics of the aborigines in the shape of 

 skulls, bones, stone and wooden implements, and rock-carvings, some 

 of which are more or less abundant in most of the islands, the early 

 writers have left us graphic descriptions of these people, their man- 

 ners and customs; and they give us the facts as they passed before 

 their eyes, without any endeavor to bend such facts to the support 

 of their own pet theory, or to explain what they did not understand, 

 save by the usual and satisfactory method of assigning everything 

 of which they disapproved or for which they could not account to the 

 agency of the devil. 



It is indeed fortunate that the discoverers have given us so many 

 details of what they saw in those beautiful islands, which they flat- 

 tered themselves were the outposts of the empire of the Great Khan, 

 for the people they saw there have long since passed away, leaving 

 no posterity behind them, save in the case of the Caribs of Dominica 

 and St. Vincent. The Lucayans of the Bahamas, the Arrowauks of 

 Cuba and the larger Antilles have for the last three hundred years or 

 so been extinct. It is true that at Parottee Point, in Jamaica, a 

 few of the fishermen claim to have Indian blood in their veins, and one 

 old man assured me he was a pure Indian by descent. These people 

 had straight black hair, and were decidedly different in feature to 

 their negro neighbors. However, in all probability the Indian ele- 

 ment is accounted for by Indians having not infrequently been 

 brought to Jamaica either from the Mosquito coast or Florida. Sir 

 Hans Sloane, who came to Jamaica more than two centuries ago as 

 physician to the Duke of Albemarle, speaks of Indians there 



not natives of the island, they being all destroyed by the Spaniards, but are 

 usually brought by surprise from the Mosquitos or from Florida, or such 

 as were slaves to the Spaniards and taken from them by the English. 

 They are very good hunters and fishers, hut are naught at working in the 

 field or slavish work, and if checked or drubbed are good for nothing, 

 therefore are very gently treated and well fed. 



Curiously enough, at the present day the people claiming Indian 

 descent in Jamaica are still expert fishermen. 



I was informed by General Legitime, ex-President of Haiti, that 

 in that island, in the wild, forest-clad mountains beyond Jacmel, 

 people live in the woods who never visit the towns or hold any com- 



