322 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



see whether any alterations were required in a group of 

 natives, I think, of Guiana. 



I found Dr. Latham among a number of workmen in 

 white aprons, several life-size clay models of Indians, and a 

 number of their ornaments, weapons, and utensils. The head 

 modellers were Italians, and Dr. Latham told me he could 

 get no Englishmen to do the work, and that these Italians, 

 although clever modellers of the human figure in any 

 required attitude, had all been trained in the schools of 

 classical sculpture, and were unable to get away from this 

 training. The result was very curious, and often even 

 ludicrous, a brown Indian man or girl being given the 

 attitudes and expressions of an Apollo or a Hercules, a 

 Venus or a Minerva. In those days there were no photo- 

 graphs, and the ethnologist had to trust to paintings or 

 drawings, usually exaggerated or taken from individuals of 

 exceptional beauty or ugliness. Under my suggestion 

 alterations were made both in the features and pose of one 

 or two of the figures just completed, so as to give them a 

 little more of the Indian character, and serve as a guide in 

 modelling others, in which the same type of physiognomy 

 was to be preserved. I went several times during the work 

 on the groups of South American origin, but though when 

 completed, with the real ornaments, clothing, weapons, and 

 domestic implements, the groups were fairly characteristic 

 and life-like, yet there remained occasionally details of atti- 

 tude or expression which suggested classic Greek or Italy 

 rather than the South American savage. 



These ethnological figures, although instructive to the 

 student, were never very popular, and soon became the 

 subject of contempt and ridicule. One reason of this was 

 their arrangement in the open, quite close to the passing 

 visitor, with nothing to isolate them from altogether incon- 

 gruous surroundings. Another was, that they were not care- 

 fully attended to, and when I saw them after my return 

 from the East, they had a shabby and dilapidated appear- 

 ance, and the figures themselves were more or less dusty, 

 which had a most ludicrous effect in what were intended to 



