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

654> EARLY MIGRATION east coast of America. Tradition in Brazil says that such arrivals took place there, and certainly there is a resemblance in some points between the Patagonians and what history states of the Guanches. Let us now turn to the Negro population, descendants of Cash. Spreading to the south and west, they may have over- run extensive regions in Africa, but by no means to the exclu- sion of the mixed varieties of men, who also explored and colonized that continent, chiefly towards the northern and cen- tral regions. From the coast opposite Madagascar a party of ne- groes might have embarked to cross the Mosambique Channel, or they might have been driven off by a storm while coasting along near Algoa Bay, in which cases the current, always set- ting south-westward along that coast, would have hurried them into the region of strong westerly winds, by which they must have been carried, if their vessel and provisions held out, to the coast of New Holland, or to Van Diemen's Land. Now it is worth notice that the men of the south-western quarter of Aus- tralia are exceedingly like some of those who frequent the countries near Algoa Bay — and that the native dances and superstitions are very similar ; Avhile the aborigines of Van -Diemen's Land, though of like colour, are shorter, stouter, and have coarser features ; differences which might be expected to result from living in a wetter, windier, and colder climate. That other negroes arrived on the northern shores of Australia, brought there as slaves by red men, or making their escape from Asiatic masters, is probable : and from one or other source, if not from each, the black men in Australia and Van Diemen's Land may have been derived. That red men must have landed in Australia, we now know bv the notices of late travellers, and their presence accounts for the colour observable in many of the so-called blacks, whose actual hue, when washed, is a deep brown — next to black, certainly, but with a perceptible red tinge. They are nearly the variety which would be produced by the intermarriage of a Negro and a Chino (see table, page 643,) called Zambo-chino in Lima : but there are gradations of colour, as might be expected, and va-