288 



Oroonoko ? But these Indians had hair as 

 black as the Otomacks and other tribes, whose 

 complexion is the deepest. Were they Albinoes, 

 such as have been found heretofore in the isth- 

 mus of Panama ? But examples of this dege- 

 neration are very rare in the coppercoloured 

 race ; and Anghieri, as well as Gomara, speaks 

 of the inhabitants of Paria in general, and not 

 of a few individuals. Both describe * them as 

 if they were people of Germannic origin ; they 

 call them Whites with light hair ; they even 

 add, that they wore garments like those of the 

 Turks -f-. Gomara and Anghiera wrote from 



* iEthiopes nigri, crispi lanati, Pariae incolae albi, capillis 

 oblongis protensis Jlavis. Petrus Martyr, Ocean., Dec. 1, Lib. 

 vi, (ed. 1574) p. 71. TJtriusque sexus indigenae albiveluti nos- 

 trutes, prater eos qui sub sole versantur. Ibid, p. 75. Gomara, 

 speaking of the natives that Columbus saw at the mouth of 

 the river of Cumana, says : f \ Las donzellas eran amorosas, 

 desnudas y blancas (las de la casa) - } los Indios que van al 

 campo estan negros del sol.*' Hist, de los Indios, cap. 74, 

 p. 97. Los Indios de Paria son blancos y rubios. Garcia, 

 Origen de los Indios. 1729, Lib. iv, cap. 9, p. 270. 



f They wear round their head a striped cotton handker- 

 chief. Ferd. Columb., cap. 71 (Churchill, vol. ii, p. 586). 

 Was this kind of head-dress taken for a turban ? (Garcia, 

 del Origen de los Ind., p. 303). I am surprised, that a 

 people of those regions should wear a head-dress ; but, what 

 is much more curious still, Pinzon, in a voyage that he 

 made alone to the coast of Paria, the particulars of which 

 have been transmitted to us by Peter Martyr of Anghiera, 

 professes to have seen natives who were clothed. 



