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 Gomara and Anghiera wrote from 



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

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

 vi, (eel. 1574) p. 71. Utriusque sexus indigense albiveluti nos- 

 trates, 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 JLas donzellas eran amorosaS;, 

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

 eampo eslan negros del sol.*' Hist, de los Indios, cap. 74, 

 p. 97. -Los Iudios 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 ibv 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. 



