GOSSIP THE AFFINITY OF RACES. 289 



therefore I trust you will bear with me, although to say the least 

 the subject is of a most unpromising and impracticable nature. 



My attention was directed to the affinity or relationship of the 

 human family in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, by the 

 following circumstance. About two years ago there appeared in 

 the Church Chronicle, published in this city, a well written 

 article, comparing a passage in Herodotus, on the customs of the 

 Carian women of Asia Minor, with what is recorded of the customs 

 of the Carib women of the Antilles at the time of the modern 

 discovery of the latter by Columbus. The similarity is somewhat 

 remarkable. The author of the article suggested that it might help 

 to account for the peopling of some of those islands, or of the 

 central portions of the continent beyond. But at the period of 

 which Herodotus writes, there could have been no communica- 

 tion between the Eastern and Western continents, and nothinof 

 can be gathered therefrom to show affinity in any way. I believe, 

 however, and it is to this I would direct attention, that there may 

 have been affinity in the remoter past, of which these mutual cus- 

 toms were a relic. 



The passage referred to from Herodotus, is as follows : «* Those 

 of them who set out from the Prytaneum of Athens, and who deem 

 themselves the most noble of the lonians, brought no wives -with 

 them when they came to settle in this country, but seized a number 

 of Carian women after they had killed their men, and on account 

 of this massacre, these women established a law, and imposed on 

 themselves an oath, and transmitted it to their daughters, that they 

 would never eat with their husbands, nor ever call them by the 

 name of husband, because they had killed their fathers, their hus- 

 bands and their children, and then after so doing had forced them 

 to become their wives. This was done at Miletus." 



When Herodotus relates any event or circumstance falling under 

 his own observation, his veracity is indisputable ; but what he 

 relates from other sources is not always to be depended on. It may 

 be valuable as a reflex of the belief or opinions of his time, but 

 remains to be judged in the light of superior modern knowledge and 

 civilization. The story therefore of the Carian women, with ample 

 foundation in fact, has been mixed up with the inroad of the 



