abdominal region was never unduly enlarged, perhaps
owing to the fact that their digestion was good, and also because they
took a considerable amount of daily exercise. In standing they kept their
shoulders well back, the abdominal region being slightly in front of the
chest. The head was usually slightly inclined downwards.

The feet of the Bororos of the Malay type were generally stumpy, but this
was not so with the higher Papuan types, who, on the contrary, had
abnormally long toes and elongated feet, rather flattened. The Bororos
used their toes almost as much as their fingers, and showed great
dexterity in picking up things, or in spinning twine, when their toes did
quite as much work as their fingers.

The colour of the iris of the Bororo eye was brown, with considerable
discoloration around its outer periphery, and especially in the upper
part, where it was covered by the lid. The eyes were generally kept half
closed.

The anatomical detail of the body was perfectly balanced. The arms were
powerful, but with fine, well-formed wrists--exquisitely chiselled, as
were all the attachments of their limbs. They had quite graceful hands,
long-fingered--in more ways than one--and wonderfully well-shaped,
elongated, convex-faced nails, which would arouse the envy of many a lady
of Western countries. The webbing between the fingers was infinitesimal,
as with most Malay races. Great refinement of race was also to be noticed
in the shape of their legs--marvellously modelled, without an ounce of
extra flesh, and with small ankles.

The Bororos divided themselves into two separate families--the Bororo
Cerados and the Bororo Tugaregghi. The first descended from Baccoron; the
second claimed descent from Ittibori. Baccoron lived where the sun set,
in the west; Ittibari dwelt in the east.

I heard a strange legend in connection with their origin, in which they
seemed proud of their descent from the jaguar--which to them represented
the type of virility. A male jaguar, they said, had married a Bororo
woman.

A sensible custom existed among the Bororos, as among the Tuaregs of the
Sahara desert in Africa. The children took the name of the mother and not
of the father. The Bororos, like the Tuaregs, rightly claimed that there
could be no mistake as to who the mother of a child was, but that
certainty did not always apply to the father. This was decidedly a
sensible law among the Bororos, who were most inconstant in their
affec