240 CRANIA AMERICANA. 



We shall merely add that the genuine Charibs of St, Vincent were reduced 

 in 1763 to one hundred families; and thirty years later they scarce numbered 

 that many individuals.* 



The Black Charibs. The Black Charibs of St. Vincent were the descend- 

 ants of a cargo of slaves of the Moco tribe which were shipwrecked on the island 

 of Bequia, near St. Vincent, about the year 1675. The Charibs first reduced 

 them to slavery; but finding their numbers increase, resolved to destroy all the 

 male children; whereupon the blacks revolted, slew great numbers of their 

 masters, and soon became the most numerous and dominant family on the island.f 

 They flattened the heads of their children, like the natives ; a practice which was 

 also adopted by the runaway slaves, in order to stamp their offspring with a badge 

 of freedom. Towards the close of the past century the Black Charibs, joined by 

 the feeble remains of the native Indians, rebelled against the English authorities, 

 and for some time held possession of the island ; but being finally subdued, they 

 were, in 1795, exiled to the island of Rattam, in the Bay of Honduras. 



THE ARAUCANIANS. 



The Araucanians, the most celebrated and powerful of the Chilian tribes, 

 inhabit the region between the rivers Bio-bio and Valdivia, and between the Andes 

 and the sea, and derive their name from the province of Arauco. They are a 

 robust and muscular people, of a lighter complexion than the surrounding tribes. 

 Endowed with an extraordinary degree of bodily activity, they reach old age with 

 few infirmities, and generally retain their sight, teeth and memory unimpaired. 

 They are brave, discreet and cunning to a proverb, patient in fatigue and enthusi- 

 astic in all their enterprises, and fond of war as the only source of distinction. 

 Hence their successful opposition to the encroachments of the Spaniards : three 

 centuries of almost constant warfare have neither subdued nor tamed them; and 



* Edwards, Hist, of the West Indies, B. III^ chap. 3. 

 t Sir W. Young, Account of the Charibs, p. 42. 



