94 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
eventually become as wrinkled and flabby as the 
ugliest man in the village; and the careless little 
maiden, not many years later, almost as soon as her 
shape and limbs were rounded and perfected, would 
begin to acquire that grossness that mars maidenly 
beauty, and, if mar- 
ried at eighteen, at 
twenty-five or thirty 
she would be old, 
though vigorous, 
and resemble those 
middle-aged females 
about her. 
A writer thus de- 
scribes the Domin- 
ica Caribs in 1795: 
‘¢ They are of clear 
copper color, and 
have sleek, black 
hair; their persons 
are stout and well 
made, but they dis- 
: figure their faces by 
ANCIENT [aRIBS. flattening their fore- 
; heads in infancy. 
They live chiefly by fishing in the rivers and the sea, 
or by fowling in the woods, in both which pursuits 
they use their arrows with wonderful dexterity. It is 
said they will kill the smallest bird with an arrow at 
a great distance, or transfix a fish at a considerable 
depth in the sea. They display also very great in- 
genuity in making curious-wrought panniers, or bas- 
kets, of silk-grass or the leaves and bark of trees.” 
