PERMANENCY OF NAMES. 81 



ny the easterly currents ; but it also may have happened, 

 that the Spanish navigators, little attentive to languages, 

 gave the names Carib and Cannibal to every race of people 

 of tall stature and ferocious character. Still it is by no 

 moans probable that the Caribs ot the islands and of Parima 

 took to themselves the name of the region which they had 

 originally inhabited. On the east of the Andes, and wherever 

 civilization has not yet penetrated, it is the people who have 

 given names to the places where they have settled.* The 

 words Caribs and Cannibals appear significant ; they are 

 epithets referring to valour, strength, and even superior in- 

 telligence.f It is worthy oi remark, that, at the arrival of 

 the Portuguese, the Brazilians gave to their magicians the 

 name of caraibes. We know that the Caribs ot Parima were 

 the most wandering people of America ; possibly some wily 

 individuals of that nation played the same part as the 

 Chaldeans of the ancient continent. The names of nations 

 readily become affixed to particular professions ; and when, 

 in the time of the Ca3sars, the superstitions of the East were 

 introduced into Italy, the Chaldeans no more came from the 

 banks of the Euphrates than our Gypsies (Egyptians or 

 Bohemians) came from the banks of the Nile or the Elbe. 



AVhen a continent and its adjacent islands are peopled by 

 one and the same race, we may choose between two hypo- 

 theses ; supposing the emigration to have taken place either 

 from the islands to the continent, or from the continent to 

 the islands. The Iberians (Basques), who were settled at 

 the same time in Spain and in the islands of the Mediter- 

 ranean, afford an instance of this problem; as do also the 

 .Malays, who appear to be indigenous in the peninsula of 

 Malacca, and in the district of Menangkabao in the island 

 of Sumatra.]: The archipelago of the large and small West 

 India Islands forms a narrow and broken neck of land, 



* These names of places can be perpetuated only where the nations 



succeed immediately to each other, and where the tradition is uninter- 



d. Thus, in the province of Quito, many of the summits of the 



Andes bear names which bilon- neither to the Quichua (the language of 



! nca) nor to the ancient language of the Paruays, governed by the 



Conchocando of Lican. 



" L'haraibi magnK sapientise viri." 



Crawfurd, Ind. Arcbipel., vol. ii. p. 371. I make use of the word 

 taligenous (auto tho:ii), nt to indicate a fact of creation, which does not 

 VOL. 111. O 



