The Caribs, who were found in possession of most of the West Indian Islands, and of the eastern coast of South America, were a warlike, fierce, and enterprising race. Even in Columbus's time they were found making long voyages to ravage the villages of the peace-loving Nahuatls. If there be any truth in the story told to Solon by the priests of Sais, they are a much more likely people to have invaded the countries around the Mediterranean than the Nahuatls. What seems foreign in the customs and beliefs of the latter appears to have come from the west--from China and Japan--whilst there are some few points of affinity between the Caribs and the peoples of Europe and Africa. Thus, Mr. Hyde Clarke states that the greater part of Brazil is covered by the Guarani or Tupi languages, which are allied to the Agaw of the Nile region, the Abkass of Caucasia, etc. There is one singular custom amongst the Carib races of America, and amongst some ancient peoples in Asia, Europe, and Africa, the existence of which on both sides of the Atlantic cannot, I think, be explained excepting on the theory that there was a remote intercourse or affinity amongst the peoples who practised it. I allude to the singular custom of the "couvade," in which the father is put to bed on the birth of a child. I take the following account of this curious practice from Mr. Tylor's philosophical "Early History of Mankind". The couvade is developed to the highest degree in South America and the West Indies. The following account is given by Du Tertre of the Carib couvade in the West Indies. When a child is born, the mother goes presently to work, but the father begins to complain, and takes to his hammock, and there he is visited as though he were sick, and undergoes a course of dieting "which would cure of the gout the most replete of Frenchmen." The imaginary invalid must repose and take careful nursing and nourishing food. In Brazil, on the birth of a child, the father was put to bed and fed with light food, whilst the mother was unattended to, and went about her work. The practice of the couvade was universal, in some form or other, amongst the Carib races, but was unknown amongst the peoples whom I have called the Nahuatls.