I 



2-24 



eyelids are furnished with very long eyelashes, 

 and the habit of casting them down, as if they 

 Were lowered by lassitude, softens the look of 

 the women, and makes the eye thus veiled, ap- 

 pear less than it really is. If the Chaymas, and 

 in general all the natives of South America and 

 New Spain, resemble the Mongul race, by the 

 form of the eye, their high cheek bones, their 

 straight and flat hair, and the almost entire 

 want of beard ; they essentially differ from them 

 in the form of the nose, which is pretty long, 

 prominent throughout it's whole length, and 

 thick toward the nostrils, the openings of which 

 are directed downward, as with all the nations 

 of the Caucasian race. Their wide mouth, 

 with lips but little protuberant though broad, 

 has often an expression of goodness. The pas- 

 sage from the nose to the mouth is marked in 

 both sexes by two furrows, which run diverging 

 from the nostrils toward the corners of the 

 mouth. The chin is extremely short and round ; 

 and the jaws are remarkable for their strength 

 and width. 



Though the Chaymas have fine white teeth, 

 like all people who lead a very simple life, 

 they are however not so strong as those of the 

 Negroes. The habit of blackening the teeth, 

 from the age of fifteen, by the juices of certain 

 herbs # and caustic lime, had engaged the at- 



* The first historians of the conquest attribute this effect 



