282 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MJSEUM, 1887. 



Iii Rio Janeiro as well as in the United States and the West Indies 

 may be seen in perfection the African toting on the head. This prac- 

 tice does not seem to have been a favorite one among the American 

 aborigines, if we except the water-carriers of the interior basin of the 

 United States. In the coffee- carriers of Eio as well as among the steve- 

 dores of all our sea-ports and commercial towns, the load rests partly on 

 the head and partly on the top of the scapulae, there being local vari- 

 ations of the method running from support on the head alone to support 

 on the scapulas alone. The method is an exceedingly convenient one 

 either for unloading or for emptying the sack. 



Fig. 35. 

 Negroes in Rio Janeiro, Brazil, acting as draught animals. 



(From an old print.) 



From Rio we have also an old sketch, after Wilkes, illustrating the 

 use of man as a draft animal. (Fig. 35.) All over the world the 

 "push-cart" is known. Nothing is commoner in Washington than the 

 sight of a negro with his little two- 

 wheeled cart, moving at a dog-trot, 

 with a light load of everything con- 

 ceivable. The freight of one of these 

 carts rarely exceeds the quarter of a 

 ton, but the draft-man moves much 

 faster than a horse or a mule. The 

 climax of -this process of using men 

 for draft is seen on the monuments 

 of Egypt, where hundreds of them 

 are hitched to a single sledge. The 

 romantic survival presents itself 

 everywhere in firemen's processions, 

 the car of Juggernaut, the triumphal 

 car. 



A negro dray team in Rio consists 

 of five stalwart Africans pushing, 

 pulling, steering, and shouting as 

 they make their way amid the ser- 

 ried throng. Now an omnibus thun- 

 ders through the crowd, and a large 

 four-wheeled wagon, belonging to some company for the transportation 

 of " goods," crashes in its wake. Formerly all this labor was performed 



Fig. 35a. 

 Napo In wan Carkier, of Ecuador. 



(After Stanford. ) 



