Aboriginal Race of America. 139 



called an amphibious animal, so readily and equally does he adapt 

 himself to the land or water. His boat is an evidence of mechanical 

 skill, and the adroit manner in which he manages it is a proverb 

 among mariners. The women are not less expert and enterprising 

 than the men : each possesses a boat of peculiar and distinctive con- 

 struction ; and Crantz informs us, that children of the tender age of 

 seven or eight years commence the unassisted management of their 

 little vessels. 



How strongly do these and other traits which might be enumerated, 

 contrast with those of the Indian, and enforce an ethnographic 

 dissimilarity which is confirmed at every step of the investigation ! 



Some writers, however, think they detect in the Fuegian a being 

 whose similar physical condition has produced in him all the charac- 

 teristics of the Eskimau ; but we confidently assert that the latter 

 is vastly superior both in his exterior organization and mental 

 aptitude. In truth the two may be readily contrasted, but not easily 

 compared. The Fuegian bears a coarse but striking resemblance to 

 the race to which he belongs, and every feature of his character 

 assists in fixing his identity. The extremes of cold, with their many 

 attending privations, by brutifying the features and distorting the 

 expression of the face, reduce man to a mere caricature, a repulsive 

 perversion of his original type. Compare the Mongols of Central 

 Asia and China, with the Polar nations of Siberia. Compare also 

 the Hottentot with the contiguous black tribes on the north ; the 

 Tasmanian negro with the proper New Hollanders ; and lastly, the 

 wretched Fuegian with the Indian beyond the Magellanic Strait ; and 

 we find in every instance how much more the man of a cold and 

 inhospitable clime is degraded, physically and intellectually, than 

 his more fortunate but affiliated neighbor. The operation of these 

 perverting causes through successive ages of time, has obscured but 

 not obliterated those lineaments which, however modified, point to 

 an aboriginal stock. 



Without attempting to enter the fathomless depths of philology, 

 I am bound to advert to the opinion of Mr. Gallatin, that all the 

 nations from Cape Horn to the Arctic Ocean, have languages which 

 possess " a distinct character common to all, and apparently differ- 

 ing from those of the other continent with which we are acquainted ;" 



