supposed to have taken place between them, and although, according to my theory the Caribs, had been originally of the same race, yet still in the course of the 200 years that must have elapsed since their migration, and their mingling with the people they found in the New World before them, they had formed new combinations to obliterate all former affinities. As to the second question of the improbability of any savage nation being able to make such a passage I think we need feel as little difficulty. People accustomed to the hardships of savage life could endure the privations consequent on such a voyage at least as well as civilized men, and how such have endured them we have unfortunately abundant instances. I need only recall to your recollections one which will be familiar to you all, of Captain Bligh and his companions who were set adrift on the Ocean by the mutineers of the "Bounty," though many other such instances might be easily adduced. In that one the Commander with 18 others in the Ship's launch ran by the log a distance of 3618 nautical miles, a voyage of 47 days, with the gunwale almost to the water's edge, with scarcely anything to support life, without shelter from the weather, yet without the loss of a single man. This distance of 3618 miles is double that from Africa to the West India Islands and the time of 47 days is also double of that which would be sufficient for a boat to run before the wind from Africa across the Ocean. But even if they were afloat so long a time we may consider that savages in such a case would not scruple to feed on the bodies of their fellows, as civilized men have been too often tempted to do, especially when on shore those savages might have before given way to such horrible emergencies, as both in Africa and America we have accounts of their practices as well as elsewhere. The earlier writers speaking of the people in the New World found more especially addicted to such propensities, designated them Caribs as a name applied to them by the other inhabitants signifying superiority over them. Peter Martyr says, the word in the language of all these countries signified "stronger than the rest;" Vesputius says, it was a word of their own language signifying men of great wisdom. Se eorum lingua Charaibi, hoc est magnæ sapientiæ viros vocantes, et provincia ipsa Parias ab ipsis nuncupata est. Grynæus p. 166. Without taking this as the literal meaning of the name, I think we may from this consider that it was an appellation they even then gave themselves as they have continued to do ever since, which appellation the other Indians took from them as a word of dreaded import. If then it may be con-
