NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS,             87

among any of them. The strength of their bodies, the
extraordinary suppleness of their limbs, and the height
which they attain may fairly be attributed to liberty and
exrecise'to which the children are accustomed from their
earliest yout*
  There is -also a conformation of features as well as
person, which, more or less characterises them all. The
face is round, farther removed than that of any other
people, from an oval shape. Their cheek-bones are a
little raised, for this peculiarity the men are more distin-
guished than, the women. Their forehead is small: the
extremity of the ears far from the face; their lips thick,
their noses are generally broad, with wide nostrils ; their
eyes are black, or of a chesnut colour, small, but capable
of discerning objects at a great distance; their hair is
thick and strong, without any tendency to curl; their
ears large; their legs well formed, and the feet small.
They have little or no beards on the face, which is not
a natural deficiency, as some travellers have asserted but
an artificial deprivation, for they carefully eradicate the
hair from every part of the body, except the head, and
they confined that, in ancient times, to a tuft on the top.
  One great peculiarity in the native Americans is their
colour, and the identity of it throughout the whole extent
of the continent, except the coasts of Labrador, as we
have already mentioned.  Their colour is that of cop-
per; a colour which, as has been frequently observed, is
peculiar to'the Americans. " They are all," says Che.
valier Pinto, "c of a copper colour, with some diversity of
shade, not in proportion to their distance from the equa-
tor, but according to the degree of the elevation of the
country in which they reside. Those who live in a
high country are fairer than those in the marshy low
lands on the coast."  It is said, however, and it is pro-
bable enough, that two small tribes have been lately dis-
covered in Mexico, who differ considerably from all the
other Indian nations, in colour and mode of living. We