64 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



and uncurled. With rare exceptions they carefully eradicate 

 their scanty beard. Their forehead is generally low, their black 

 and deep-seated eyes have their upper angles turned upwards, 

 and their cheek-bones are broad and high. While they thus in 

 some of their features resemble the Mongol type, they widely 

 differ from it by the form of their nose, which is as prominent 

 as in the Caucasian race. The mouth is large, the lips broad, 

 but not thick as those of the Negro ; the chin short and round, 

 the jaws remarkably strong and broad. The expression of the 

 eye is in some tribes mild and serene, in others it shows a 

 forbidding mixture of melancholy and ferocity. There is 

 generally a remarkable rigidity in the features of the American, 

 very different from that lively play in a European countenance, 

 which often reflects as a mirror every emotion of the mind. 

 Some tribes are of small stature, others athletic ; the limbs 

 are generally well-turned ; the feet small ; the body of just 

 proportions. 



The beardless countenance and smooth skin seem to indicate 

 a defect of vigour which does not exist in reality. In those 

 parts of the continent where hardly any labour is requisite to 

 procure subsistence, and the powers of the body and mind are 

 not called forth, indolence indeed produces its usual effects, 

 weakness and languor ; but wherever the aboriginal American 

 is accustomed to toil, he is found capable of performing such 

 tasks as equal any effort of the natives either of Africa or of 

 Europe. In many of the silver mines of Mexico, where the 

 ore is conveyed to the surface by human labour, the native 

 Indians will climb steep ladders with 240 to 380 pounds, and 

 perform this hard work for six hours consecutively. Their 

 muscular strength seemed truly astonishing to Humboldt, who, 

 though having no weight but his own to carry, felt himself 

 utterly exhausted after ascending from a deep mine.* In pro- 

 pelling a boat against a rapid stream, or in supporting the 

 fatigues of a long march, the Indian evinces similar powers of 

 endurance and exertion, which prove him to be not inferior in 

 this respect to the other races of man. 



The uniformity which prevails in the features of the American 

 aboriginals, exists also in the qualities of their minds, which 

 generally exhibit an apparent indifference to pain or pleasure 

 * The Subterranean World.' Second Edition, p. 306. 



