226 



or were practised with the view of preventing 

 the toothach. This disorder is almost un- 

 known to the Indians ; the whites even suffer 

 very seldom from it in the Spanish Colonies., 

 at least in the warm regions, where the tem- 

 perature is so uniform. They are more ex- 

 posed to it on the back of the Cordilleras, at 

 Santa-Fe, and at Popayan. 



The Chaymas, like almost all the native 

 nations I have seen, have small, slender hands. 

 Their feet are large, and their toes retain an 

 extraordinary mobility. All the Chayrnas have 

 a family look ; and this analogy of form, so 

 often observed by travellers, is so much the 

 more striking, as between the years of twenty 

 and fifty difference of age is no way denoted 

 by wrinkles of the skin, the colour of the hair, 

 or decrepitude of the body. On entering 

 a hut, it is often difficult among adult persons 

 to distinguish the father from the son, and not 

 to confound one generation with another. I 

 attribute this family look to two different causes, 

 the local situation of the Indian tribes, and 

 their inferior degree of intellectual culture* 

 Savage nations are subdivided into an infinity of 

 tribes, which, bearing a cruel hatred toward 

 each other, form no intermarriages, even when 

 their languages spring from the same root, 



who smoke with us do it because we think yellow teeth 

 handsomer than white ? 



