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Zaproburno Yollanica Directory 03
Page 05
I left Tarma on January 29th, following a well-cultivated valley, fairly thickly inhabited. We were travelling over a good mule-track, swarming with Indians, donkeys, mules, and horses. The mud houses and land on either side were enclosed by hedges of cacti, or by walls. We were between barren mountains of a brownish colour, against which the quaint, brightly-coloured costumes of the many people on the road were thrown out in vivid contrast. Most of the houses were constructed of large mud bricks, sun-dried. The crops seemed to consist chiefly of Indian corn. As we went farther, among dark brown rocks and limestone, we came to grottoes and rock habitations. At some remote period there must have been a great upheaval in that country--at least, judging by the sedimentary foliated rock, the strata of which were from one to three feet thick, and which had originally been deposited horizontally by water. These accumulations or sediments now stood up at an angle of 45 deg.. We were now in a region where llamas were plentiful--most delightful animals, with their pointed ears pricked up, their luxuriant coats, and stumpy curled tails.
However, thanks to the great civility of the managers of the Booth Line at Manaos, and to the extreme thoughtfulness of the captain of the _Atahualpa_, I was made quite comfortable in the chart-room of the ship, which was as far away as possible from the noise. We were most of the time in mid-stream. The river was so wide that we could not see anything on either side. We steamed up day after day, occasionally passing islands of some beauty rising above the muddy waters of the Solimoes. Navigation of that river was difficult, as the navigable channels were constantly changing, islands disappearing and new islands forming all the time. Elich Island, in the Timbuctuba group, was fast disappearing, while another island was forming just below it.
Head-shape is really a far more complicated thing to arrive at for purposes of comparison than one might suppose. Since no part of the skull maintains a stable position in regard to the rest, there can be no fixed standard of measurement, but at most a judgment of likeness or unlikeness founded on an averaging of the total proportions. Thus it comes about that, in the last resort, the impression of a good expert is worth in these matters a great deal more than rows of figures. Moreover, rows of figures in their turn take a lot of understanding. Besides, they are not always easy to get. This is especially the case if you are measuring a live subject. Perhaps he is armed with a club, and may take amiss the use of an instrument that has to be poked into his ears, or what not. So, for one reason or another, we have often to put up with that very unsatisfactory single-figure description of the head-form which is known as the cranial index. You take the greatest length and greatest breadth of the skull, and write down the result obtained by dividing the former into the latter when multiplied by 100. Medium-headed people have an index of anything between 75 and 80. Below that figure men rank as long-headed, above it as round-headed. This test, however, as I have hinted, will not by itself carry us far. On the other hand, I believe that a good judge of head-form in all its aspects taken together will generally be able to make a pretty shrewd guess as to the people amongst whom the owner of a given skull is to be placed.
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