THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 407 



in the Prince's household, died, no doubt as to their common human- 

 ity marred the pious belief, that he was the hrst of his nation to 

 enter heaveu. 



Such was the earliest knowledge acquired by the old world of the 

 singular type of humanity generically designated as the Bed Indian ; 

 and the attention which its peculiarities excited when thus displayed 

 in their fresh novelty has not yet exhausted itself, after an interval 

 of upwards of three centuries and a half. That certain special char- 

 acteristics in complexion, hair, form and features, do pertain to the 

 whole race of this continent is not to be disputed ; and these pre- 

 valent characteristics were so generally noted, to the exclusion of all 

 others, that Ulloa, and after him others of the Spanish explorers of 

 the new world remarked : He who has seen one tribe of Indians, has 

 seen all. In the sense in which this remark was first made, and by 

 Spaniards, who knew only of Central America and the tropical re- 

 gion of the Southern continent, there was nothing in it to challange. 

 But that which was originally the mere rude generalization of a tra- 

 veller, has been adopted in our own day as a dogma of science ; and 

 the universality of certain homogeneous characteristics of the aborigi- 

 nal tribes and nations of America, with the exception of the Esqui- 

 maux, is assumed as an established postulate for the strictest pur- 

 poses of scientific induction, and has been repeatedly affirmed in the 

 very words of the Spaniard. 



Such authorities as Bobertson the historian, and Malte Brun, mav 

 be classed along with the first Spanish observers, in the value to be 

 attached to their sweeping generalizations. " The Esquimaux," says 

 the former, " are manifestly a race of men distinct from all the nations 

 of the American continent, in language, in disposition, and in habits 

 of life. But among all the other inhabitants of America there is 

 such a striking similitude in the form of their bodies, and the quali- 

 ties of their minds, that, notwithstanding the diversities occasioned 

 by the influence of climate, or unequal progress of improvement, we 

 must pronounce them to be descended from one source."* Malte 

 Brun, with more caution, simply affirms, as the result of a long 

 course of physiological observations, that " the Americans, whatever 

 their origin may be, constitute at the present day a race essentially 

 different from the rest of mankind. "f But greater importance is to 

 to be attached to the precisely defined views of Humboldt, in so far 

 as these are not — like those of so many other writers on this subject, 



* Robertson's America, B. IV. In relation to languages, this difference between the 

 Esquimaux and the Indians is no longer maintained, 

 t Malte Brun, Geog. Lib. xxv . 



