In 1851, Sir Robert Schomburgk communicated to the British Association the results of recent ethnological researches in St. Domingo. In these the observant traveller deplored the fact that of the millions of natives who at its discovery peopled the island, not a single pure descendant now exists, though he could trace in the Indios of mixed blood the peculiar features and other physical characteristics of the Indian still uneradicated. In the absence of a true native population, Sir Robert Schomburgk remarks: “My researches were restricted to what history and the few and poor monuments have transmitted to us of their customs and manners. Their language lives only in the names of places, trees, and fruits, but all combine in declaring that the people who bestowed these names were identical with the Carib and Arawaak tribes of Guiana. An excursion to the calcareous caverns of Pommier, about ten leagues to the west of the city of Santo Domingo, afforded me the examination of some picture-writings executed by the Indians after the arrival of the Spaniards. These remarkable caves, which are in themselves of high interest, are situated within the district over which, at the landing of the Spaniards, the fair Indian Catalina reigned as cacique.” To this district they were tempted by the news of rich mines in its mountains. In 1496, a fortified tower was erected, called originally San Aristobal; but so abundant was the precious metal, that even the stones of the fortress contained it, and the workmen named it the Golden Tower. But the lives of millions of the miserable natives were sacrificed in recovering the gold from their mountain veins; and then, the mines being exhausted, the country was abandoned to the exuberance of tropical desolation, while the caverns which had previously been devoted to religious rites, became places of retreat from the Spaniard and his frightful bloodhounds. One of the smaller caves still exhibits a highly interesting series of symbolic pictures, which the Indians had traced on its white and smooth walls. Near the entrance of a second cave, Sir R. Schomburgk discovered decorations of a more enduring character carved on the rock, and of these he remarks: “They belong to a remoter period, and prove much more skill and patience than the simple figures painted with charcoal on the walls of the cave near Pommier. The figures carved of stone, and worked without iron tools, denote, if not civilisation, a quick conception and an inexhaustible patience, to give to these hard substances the desired forms.” From his examination of the tools and utensils still in use in Guiana, Sir Robert doubted such to be the work of the Caribs; but he admitted that they are only found where we have sure evidence of their presence; and he under-estimated both the skill and patience shown by many native artists equally poorly provided with tools.