112 Expedition to the 



we had encamped, dressed in leggings and breech-clotli, 

 with a striped worsted vest and a silver-headed bamboo. 



A child was shown us, who spoke Spanish, and who was 

 said to be a prisoner from the Spanish settlements; he was 

 not, however, distinguished from the Kaskaias by any diffe- 

 rence of colour or of features. He spoke frequently of the 

 Christians, which convinced us that he had, at least been 

 among the half civilized Indians of New Mexico, who have 

 some acquaintance with the Spanish language, and have 

 been taught enough of the Christian religion to make use of 

 the sign of the cross. 



This band of Kaskaias frequent the country about the 

 sources of the Platte, Arkansa, and Rio Del Norte, and ex- 

 tend their hunting excursions to Red river and the sources 

 of the Brassis. The great numbers of images of the Alliga- 

 tor, which they wear, either as ornaments, or as amulets for 

 the cure or prevention of disease and misfortune, afford suf- 

 ficient proof of their extending their rambles to districts in- 

 habited by that reptile. These images are of carved wood, 

 covered with leather, and profusely ornamented, with beads. 

 They are suspended about the neck, and we saw several 

 worn in this manner by the children as well as by adults. It 

 was observed, likewise, that the rude frames of the looking- 

 glasses carried by several of the men, were carved so as to 

 approximate towards the same form. 



It is, perhaps, owing to their frequent exposures to the 

 stormy and variable atmosphere of the country about the 

 Rocky Mountains, that these Indians are subjected to nume- 

 rous attacks of rheumatic and scrofulous diseases. We 

 saw one old woman with a distorted spine, who had, proba- 

 bly, suffered when young from rickets,* A young man of 



* BaroQ Humboldt saw no instance of personal deformity among- the 

 Chaymas, the Caribs, (be iVInyscas, or the Mexican, or Peruvian In'.liuas,* 

 and he thence concludes, perhaps hastily, " that bodily dfiformities are 

 infinitely rare among those races that have the dermoid system highly 

 coloured." This remark is not strictly applicable to ihe North American 

 Indians, nor to the highly coloured descendants of African races, now so 

 * Per?. Nar, vol. iii p. 233. 



