Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

642 EAin.Y MIGRATION that the Fuegians were there described as being black, like the natives of Van Dieraen's Land. This mistake, so extraordinary considering the numerous voyagers who have seen the natives of Tierra del Fuego during the last three hundred years, stimu- lated me to inquire further into the data upon which that divi- sion of the human family into separate 'races' was founded. The more I have sought, the more evidence has appeared to demonstrate the erroneous nature of such a view ; and the pro- bability, nay certainty, that all men are of one blood. In the course of years spent in various quarters of the world, I have had opportunities of leisurely considering people from all the principal countries. I have read much of what has been written, during late years, on the subject of their resem- blance, or difference ; and the conclusion to which I have been obliged to come is — that there is far less difference between most nations, or tribes (selecting any two for the comparison), than exists between two individuals who might be chosen out of either one of those nations or tribes ; colour and hair alone excepted. In the city of Lima there are now at least twenty-three dis- tinct varieties of the human race, which are not only recognised and well known in that capital, but have been carefully enu- merated and described by Stevenson, in the following table. All these varieties have arisen from the intermarriages of three, the Spaniard, the aboriginal Peruvian, and the negro : and among their descendants almost any coloured skin, or kind of hair, may be matched. It may be observed that although negro and white produce the zambo, which is a dark copper ; and although it may be inferred from the table that zambo and some lighter variety would produce a lighter shade of copper-colour — there is still the long black hair, and scarcity of beard, observed in most American aborigines, to be accounted for. This peculiarity, however, may be derived from white and neero : and I think it would not be difficult to show that every variety of hair and colour might be produced from these two originals only.