VOL. LV.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQS 



the natural copper-coloured complexiot) of the people, he says, " There is one 

 complexion so singular among a sort of people of this country, that I never saw 

 nor heard of any like them in any part of the world. They are white, and 

 there are of them of both sexes; yet there are but few of them in comparison 

 of the copper-coloured, possibly but 1 to 2 or 30O. They differ from the other 

 Indians chiefly in respect of colour, though not in that only. Their skins are 

 not of such a white, as those of fair people among Europeans, with some tinc- 

 ture of a blush or sanguine complexion i yet neither is it like that of our paler 

 people, but it is rather a milk-white, lighter than the colour of any Europeans, 

 and much like that of a white horse. For there is this further remarkable in 

 them, that their bodies are beset all over, more or less, with a fine short milk- 

 white down ; for they are not so thick set with this down, especially on the cheeks 

 and forehead, but that the skin appears distinct from it. Their eye-brows are 

 milk-white also, and so is the hair of their heads, and very fine too," about the 

 length of 6 or 8 inches, and inclining to a curl. They are not so large as the 

 other Indians: and their eye-lids bend and open in an oblong figure, pointing 

 downwards at the corners, and forming an arch or figure of a crescent with the 

 points downwards. Hence, and from their seeing so clear as they do in a moon- 

 shiny night, we used to call them moon-eyed. For they see not well in the sun, 

 poring in the clearest day ; their eyes being but weak, and running with water 

 if the sun shine towards them ; so that in the day-time they care not to go 

 abroad, unless it be a cloudy dark day. Besides, they are a weak people in com- 

 parison of the others, and not very fit for hunting, or other laborious exercises, 

 nor do they delight in any such. But, notwithstanding their being thus sluggish 

 and dull in the day-time, yet, when moon-shiny nights come, they are all life 

 and activity, running abroad into the woods, and skipping about like wild bucks, 

 and running as fast by moon-light, even in the gloom and shade of the woods, as 

 the other Indians by day, being as nimble as they, though not so strong and 

 lusty. The copper-coloured Indians seem not to respect them so much as those 

 of their own complexion, looking on them as something monstrous. They are 

 not a distinct race by themselves-, but now and then one is bred of a copper-co- 

 loured father and mother; and I have seen a child of less than a year old of 

 this sort. 



" Some would be apt to suspect they might be the offspring of some Euro- 

 pean father; but besides that the Europeans come little here, and have little com- 

 merce with the Indian women when they do come ; these white people are as dif- 

 ferent from the Europeans, in some respects, as from the copper-coloured In- 

 dians in others. And besides, where an European lies with an Indian woman, the 

 child is always a mostese, or tawny, as is well known to all who have been in the 

 West Indies, where there are Mostesas, Mulattoes, &c. of several gradations 



VOL. XII. Co 



