smoothened surface. But there is no identity of, or even distant resemblance between, the incised and raised characters, and we need, therefore, not trouble ourselves any farther about this point. The identity of the two being abandoned, it may just be worth while to consider the possibility of their being executed by contemporaries.

In highly civilised countries, such as ancient India, Egypt, and modern Europe, different modes of expressing thoughts have been and are practised; but the most advanced people who ever inhabited Veraguas, had not attained so high a degree of civilisation as would justify us in assuming that they resorted to two entirely different systems of recording their ideas. It is, therefore, scarcely possible to escape the conclusion that the incised characters were by a different, less civilised, and more ancient race than the characters in relief.

From information received during my visit, and from what has been published since I first drew attention to this subject, I am led to believe that there are a great many inscribed rocks in Chiriqui.* But I myself have seen only one of them, the now famous piedra pintal (i. e., painted stone), which is found on a somewhat elevated plain at Caldera, a few leagues from the town of David. It is fifteen feet above ground, nearly fifty feet in circumference, and rather flat on the top. Every part, especially the eastern side, is covered with incised characters about an inch or half an inch deep. The first figure on the lefthand side represents a radiant sun, followed by a series of heads, or what appear to be heads, all with some variation. It is these heads, particularly the appendages (perhaps intended for hair?), which show a certain resemblance to one of the most curious characters found on the British rocks (fig. 11, b), and calling to mind the so-called “Ogham characters." These "heads" are succeeded by scorpion-like, or branched, and other fantastic figures. The top of the stones, and the other sides, are covered with a great number of concentric rings and ovals, crossed by lines. It is especially these which bear so striking a resemblance to the Northum

* See Bollaert, "Ancient Tombs of Chiriqui," in Journ. Ethnol. Soc., vol. ii, pp. 151, 159.

brian characters, and it is the more to be regretted that some of the drawings relating to them have been lost.

I have always rejected the idea that these figures are intended for mere ornament. Symmetry is the first aim of barbarous nations in their attempt to ornament a thing. On the contrary, I have always taken them to be symbols full of meaning, and recording ideas held to be of vital importance to the people who used them, and whose very name has become a matter of doubt. To speculate on their meaning must be labour thrown away, until we shall have become acquainted with all the inscriptions, of which those on the piedra pintal are a specimen.

My principal aim in penning these lines is to direct attention to the remarkable family likeness, if nothing more, existing between the ancient British and Veraguas inscriptions,—a relationship entirely unsuspected by me until, by a lucky accident, Mr. Tate's remarkable work fell into my hands,-and thus direct investigation into a new channel. Could an identity be established between these rocks, so widely separated geographically, we should then be in a position to indulge in legitimate speculation, the conclusions of which a leading literary journal has already anticipated. We should have to concede-I say it without hesitation-that, in prehistoric times, an intercourse existed between the British islands and Central America; that this intercourse could not be maintained with the small crafts which so rude a civilisation could send across the wide Atlantic Ocean; that a land communication was absolutely necessary to ensure such an intercourse; that it could not have been carried on by way of Asia without leaving numerous traces behind; that no such traces have been found; and that, consequently, it must have taken place when the Island of Atlantis-in the hands of modern science no longer a myth-was so intimately connecting Europe and America that the woods, which then covered Europe, were identical with those still existing in the southern parts of North America; that before science can concede all these, or similar speculations, we want more facts, which, it is hoped, may be forthcoming now that it has been shown what great interest attaches to them.

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XXI.-On the Alleged Sterility of the Union of Women of Savage Races with Native Males, after having had Children by a White Man; with a few Remarks on the Mpongwe Tribe of Negroes. By R. B. N. WALKER, F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L., Local Secretary A.S.L., etc., etc.

COUNT STRZLECKI has asserted that women of certain savage races, who have been impregnated by Europeans, or who have even cohabited with one, become sterile with men of their own race, and bases his statement on observations made by himself amongst some tribes of American Indians, Polynesians, and aboriginal Australians. This theory has been adopted and strenuously supported by Mr. Alexander Harvey, who gives it as his opinion that Count Strzlecki's "assertion has been ascertained to be unquestionable, and must be considered as the expression of a law of nature."* These opinions have already been controverted by competent observers in Australia; and I propose, in the following brief remarks, without venturing to enter into any discussion of the subject, simply to put on record a few well-authenticated cases which have come under my own eye in Western Africa, during a residence of many years, which go to prove that the conclusions arrived at by Count Strzlecki, and his supporters, do not hold good in at least one well-known tribe of pure Negroes, the Mpongwe of the Gaboon. In the instances which I shall cite, I shall confine myself strictly to living individuals, and thus afford others an opportunity of obtaining corroborative testimony from other sources should they be so disposed.

Considering the long period during which the Gaboon country has been known to, and visited by Europeans of various nations, it is somewhat remarkable that so few cross

*Broca's Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo, edited by C. Carter Blake, Esq., p. 55.

breeds should exist there; but although intercourse between Europeans visiting the country and the native women has been frequent, there have doubtless been influences at work which have tended to render the births of Mulatto children comparatively rare; among these causes, the most prominent are the noted infidelity and incontinence of the women, and their great addiction to strong drinks, which, in the shape of traderum, and other spirits of inferior and deleterious quality, are unfortunately too easily attainable. The number of Mulattoes in the first degree, born in the Gaboon country, and now living, certainly does not reach twenty; in fact, I only know of fifteen individuals. Although the nationality of the fathers of these half-breeds does not form a part of the object of this paper, it may not be amiss to notice it en passant, as some authorities hold that Negro women breed more freely with Europeans of the Latin than of the Anglo-Saxon race. Such is not the case here. Of the fifteen Mulattoes known to me in this river, six are of English paternity, five claim French fathers, one is the child of a German (Alsatian), one is of Spanish extraction, one Portuguese, and the remaining one is the offspring of a deceased slave-trader, but whether Spaniard or Portuguese the natives are now unable to say with certainty. I never heard of a native woman having had a child by a white American (of the United States). Considering the vast preponderance, of late years, of French residents and visitors over all other nations, it is worthy of remark that there should be so few children resulting from the intercourse of men of that nation with the women of Gaboon. As a rule, these halfbreeds, without respect to their paternity, are sickly and weakly, but few of them living to adult age.

I will now give three instances of native Gaboon or Mpongwe women having children by native males, after having cohabited with, and borne children to, Europeans, singularly enough, the only known cases here are those in which an Englishman has been the father of the Mulatto.

The first case, that I have any knowledge of, is that of an Mpongwe woman of pure blood who, when young, cohabited with an Englishman, and had a female child by him; after

wards, marrying a man of her own tribe, she had two full Negro children, male and female.

The second instance is that of a Mpongwe woman, who had a male child by a white man with whom she lived, and having later taken a Mpongwe husband, gave birth to a male child, full Negro, about six years after the birth of her first child of mixed blood.

The third is the most remarkable case, as in this one a full blooded Negress lived for some time with an Englishman, when young, but at that time had no children by him; but having married one of her countrymen, bore him two female children; and a year and a half after the birth of the youngest of these, she had a female child by the Englishman with whom she had previously lived, and with whom she was again cohabiting; three or four years later still, she gave birth to a boy, whose father was her native husband.

This latter case especially, I think it will be admitted, destroys the theory of Mr. McGillivray, "that the embryo, whilst in utero, subjects the mother, by some sort of inoculation, to organic or dynamic modifications, the elements of which have been transmitted to the embryo by the father, and the mother will then retain the impress permanently."*

Instances of native women cohabiting with Europeans, without having children by them, and afterwards marrying native husbands and becoming prolific, are not only not rare, but, on the contrary, are quite frequent; and so far as I have remarked, their long intercourse with white men has by no means diminished their fertility when living in the more natural union with men of their own tribe and colour. As several of the fifteen half-breeds, mentioned in this paper, are the first children of their mothers, I shall note if at a future period those women bring into the world children of pure Negro blood. It is by no means unworthy of mention here, that, until within the last few years, the Mpongwe people themselves entertained the idea that a Negress, having had issue by an European, would not afterwards breed with a man

*Broca's Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo, p. 56.