As to the supposed error in distance of which Klaproth speaks, there

was no such thing. Paravey informs us that Fou-Sang was placed at

a distance of 20,000 _Li_ from China. Now a Li, according to M.

Pothier, is equal to 444·5 metres (486 yards). In following the

course of the Kouro-Sivo, these numbers would exactly bring us to

California, where the abandoned junks were stranded; they prove what

was indicated by the theory, that this current had been the route for

voyages to and from America.

Paravey has published a facsimile of a Chinese drawing representing

a lama. This at once answers one of the objections of Klaproth, and

carries us considerably to the south of California. Amongst the

productions of Fou-Sang the Chinese authors mention the _horse_,

which, as we know, did not exist in America. It is clear that they

called by this name the animal which in Peru was used as a beast

of burden. This habit of calling by a common name species which

are known and new species which resemble them in certain respects,

certainly existed elsewhere than in China. This habit led the

Conquestadores to call the puma a _lion_, and the bison a _cow_.

But did the Chinese then extend their voyages as far as Peru? This

can hardly be doubted after the preceding testimony, and after that

which is contained in the _Geografia del Peru_ by Paz Soldan. The

following is the translation of a passage for which I am indebted to

M. Pinart: “The inhabitants of the village of Eten in the province

of Lambayéque, and the department of Libertad, seem to belong to a

different race from those of the surrounding countries. They live,

and intermarry, only amongst themselves, and speak a language which

is perfectly understood by the Chinese, who have been brought to Peru

during the last few years.”

The Chinese books studied by De Guignes and Paravey speak of

religious missions, which, towards the close of the fifth century,

left the country of _Ki-Pin_ to carry to Fou-Sang the doctrines of

Buddha. The researches of M. G. d’Eichthal have fully confirmed these

accounts. The strongest resemblances have been pointed out between

the monuments and the Buddhist figures of Asia and the same products

of American art. The comparison of legends has led the author to the

same result.

Finally, according to an encyclopædia, from which M. de Risny has

translated a passage, the Japanese were acquainted with Fou-Sang,

which they called Fou-So, and with the missions which had left the

land Ki-Pin for that country. Although its real position must still

be doubtful, they show that Fou-So and Japan are two different

countries.

To this formal testimony derived from the Chinese, we must add that

of Europeans. The first is Gomara, who witnessed the conquest of

Mexico, and was a contemporary of the expedition which followed. He

tells us that companions of Francesco-Vasquez de Coronado, in sailing

up the Western Sea as far as 40° N. lat., met with ships laden with

merchandise, which, as they were led to understand by the sailors,

had been at sea for more than a month. The Spaniards concluded that

they had come from _Cathay_ or _Sina_.

The primary object of the ships in question was evidently that of

commerce. Such pacific relations did not, however, always exist

between the native Americans and the strangers from the west. This is

proved by the testimony of an Indian traveller, preserved by Le Page

du Prat. Moncacht-Apé (_the pain-killer_) was certainly a remarkable

man. Impelled by the desire which drove Cosma from Körös to Thibet,

the wish to discover the original home of his tribe, he went at

first in a north-easterly direction as far as the mouth of the St.

Lawrence, returned to Louisiana and started again for the north-west.

Having ascended the Missouri to its source, he crossed the Rocky

Mountains and reached the Pacific Ocean by descending a river, which

he called the _beautiful river_, and which can be no other than the

Oregon.

There he heard of white, bearded men, provided with arms hurling

thunder, who came every year in a great boat to look for wood which

they used for dyeing, and carried off the natives to reduce them to

a state of slavery. Moncacht-Apé, who was acquainted with the nature

of firearms, advised his friends to prepare an ambuscade. The plans

which he suggested were a complete success. Several of the aggressors

were slain. The Americans at once saw that they were not Europeans.

Their clothes were quite different, and their arms more clumsy, while

their powder was coarser, and did not carry so far. Everything tended

to show they were Japanese, accustomed to make descents upon this

coast of America exactly similar to those undertaken by some crews

in search of sandal-wood in Melanesia, who seize the blacks whenever

they have an opportunity, and give them up to cotton planters under

the name of coolies.

The narrative of Moncacht-Apé was given in the year 1725, three or

four years before the discovery of the Behring Straits, and more

than thirty years before European voyages had acquainted us with the

north-west of America. The exact details which he gives as to the

general direction of the coast, and of its bend at the peninsula

of Alaska, are a sure proof of the correctness and truth of this

narrative. Thus, however much it may wound European pride, we must

acknowledge that Chinese and Japanese Asiatics knew and, in different

ways, explored America long before Europeans.

V. Nevertheless, these civilized nations, whose ships visited

America, do not seem to have founded large settlements, which could

become the starting point of a new colony. Had it been so, they

would have left more traces of their passage in the language. Now,

with the exception of the small Chinese colony of which I have

spoken above, there is scarcely one fact of this nature which can be

considered as established. Some Californian colonies are mentioned

as speaking a Japanese dialect. M. Guillemin Taraire has reproduced

this information in reference to a tribe of Santa Barbara; he adds

that the language of some others includes Japanese and Chinese words.

Unfortunately the researches of M. Pinart, far from confirming these

results, only tend to contradict them; we can, therefore, only speak

with great reserve upon this point.

It seems to me to have been principally in the north that the great

migrations took place, and that they were undertaken by savage

nations. The traditions borrowed by l’Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg

from the sacred books of the Quichés, and those of the Delawares

which have been preserved by Heckewelder, appear to me to offer much

information on this point. By comparing the missionary’s narrative

with some facts of Mexican history anterior to the conquest, I have

been enabled to determine approximately the date of the arrival of

the Red-Skins in the basin of the Missouri. It seems to me that we

cannot refer it to an earlier date than the ninth, or at most the

eighth, century.

These traditions bring to light another and no less important fact:

namely, that the Algonquins and Iroquois, after having crossed the

valley of the Mississippi, from which they drove the people, whose

singular monuments are now the object of study, had no more fighting

to do, and found the country uninhabited as far as the coast, and far

away to the south. The traditions of some tribes of South America

point, though not so plainly, to the same conclusion. Thus, probably

in the two halves of the New World, and certainly in the northern

portion, those uninhabited lands existed which we have already

noticed in Polynesia, and the pretended _American autochthon_ of

Agassiz, Morton, Nott, and Gliddon was, on the contrary, one of the

latest arrivals upon this continent.

These facts of thin populations, and of their low social condition,

which was everywhere the case except in those centres where

legislators had appeared who were perhaps entirely foreign to the

soil, involuntarily lead us to the conclusion that the general

peopling of America by the existing races, though it may be traced to

an earlier period than that of Polynesia, is, nevertheless, much more

recent than that of the Old World.

VI. It is not from Asia alone that America has received its

population. They came from Europe also long before the era of great

discoveries; I am not now alluding either to the story of Atlantis,

of which many interpretations are still possible, or to Phœnician

and Carthaginian traditions, nor again, to the pretentions of the

Basques and Dieppois, although they appear to be supported by

facts, which are, to say the least, curious; nor to Irish and Welsh

traditions, though Humboldt considers them well worthy of attention.

I shall only speak of the voyages accomplished by the Scandinavians

as related by Rafn from Irish sagas, and which have been lately

republished in detail by M. Gravier.

We are not now dealing with isolated facts belonging to the darkness

of those ages which they only occasionally illuminate. It is a

detailed history embracing several generations, and sometimes giving

circumstantial details which explain, and are confirmed by certain

modern discoveries.

In 877, according to M. Gravier, perhaps as early as 770, according

to M. Lacroix, Gunnbjorn discovered Greenland. In 886 Erick the

Red doubled Cape Farewell, and built at the head of a fjord his

house Brattahilda, the lately discovered ruins of which have been

compared to those of a town. In 986 Bjarn Meriulfson, when on his

way to Greenland, was carried by a storm as far as the shores of

New England. In 1000, Leif, the son of Erick the Red, started for

the country discovered by Bjarn. Accompanied by 35 men, he ran

down as far as Rhode Island, where he found the vine, and gave the

name of _Vinland_ to the country of which he took possession; he

built _Leifsbudir_, passed the winter there, and noticed that the

shortest day began at half-past seven and ended at half-past four.

This observation, which agrees with all the other details, places

Leifsbudir near the present town of Providence, 41° 24′ 10″ N. lat.

Thorwald succeeded his brother Leif. Followed by 30 warriors, he

reached Vinland and passed the winter at Leifsbudir. In the spring of

1003 he ran down as far as Long Island, explored the neighbourhood,

and returned in the autumn to his starting point. The following

summer he turned his steps northwards. Near Cape Alderton, his

companions surprised three boats made of osier, and covered with

leather, and slew eight of the men by whom they were manned. The

ninth escaped; he soon returned, however, accompanied by a great

number of his fellow-countrymen, who showered upon the Scandinavians

a cloud of arrows and then fled. But Thorwald, mortally wounded, was

interred in this land which he had expressed a desire to inhabit. It

may possibly have been his tomb which was discovered at the end of

the last century in Rainsford Island, near to Hull and Cape Alderton;

a tomb of solid masonry, containing a skeleton, and a sword with an

_iron_ hilt, indicating a period anterior to the fifteenth century.

In 1007 Thorfinn, accompanied by his wife Gudrida, started with three

ships carrying 160 men, some women, and cattle. This time the object

was to found a colony. They settled not far from Leifsbudir at Mount

Hope Bay. The strangers were soon visited by some of the natives, who

are easily identified with the Esquimaux from the description given

in the Saga. The relations maintained with these _Skrellings_ were

at first pacific. But the following year an act of brutality on the

part of a Scandinavian led to war, and Thorfinn, although victorious,

did not feel his position to be secure, and resolved to return to his

country with his companions, his wife, and his son Snorre, the first

Scandinavian born in Vinland.

Before quitting his settlement, the chief was anxious to leave some

trace of his presence. Such, at least, is the opinion adopted by

Scandinavian savants, and by M. Gravier, on the subject of the famous

_Dighton Writing Rock_. This block of gneiss, situated upon the right

bank of Tauton River, and alternately covered and left bare by the

tide, bears a certain number of characters engraved upon it to the

depth of eight millimetres (one-third inch). This _inscription_,

which has given rise to many discussions, has, probably, a double

origin. Schoolcraft tells us that an old Indian, who was familiar

with American pictography, recognized the hand of his countryman in

a certain number of signs which he was able to explain, though at

the same time he confessed that others were quite new to him. On the

other hand, Magnusen and his followers have also only been able to

interpret some of these same signs. They were, in their opinion, a

mixture of runic and cryptographic signs, and of figures referring

to the adventures of Thorfinn. They thought they could recognize

Gudrida with her son Snorre, and the phonetic portion might, it

seemed, be translated in the following manner:—131 MEN OF THE NORTH

HAVE OCCUPIED THIS COUNTRY—WITH THORFINN. I should add, however, that

Mr. Wittlesey does not admit the existence of a single alphabetical

inscription in the United States. Yet we must not suppose that the

opinion of the American antiquarian at all affects the authenticity

of the Sagas which relate the history of Thorfinn.

I cannot here repeat all the adventures of Thorvard and Freydisa, of

Ari Marson, Bjorn Asbrandson, Gudleif and Hervador ..., but I must

remark, in reference to the latter, that, through the indications

contained in the Skalholt Saga, the American savants have been able

to find upon the shores of the Potomac the tomb of a woman who fell

by the arrows of the Skrellings in 1051.

VII. The colonies founded in Greenland by Erick and his successors

multiplied rapidly; both the east and west coasts were peopled. These

two centres bore the names of _Osterbygd_ and _Vesterbygd_. From the

documents consulted by M. F. Lacroix, it appears that the former

possessed a cathedral, eleven churches, three or four monasteries,

two towns called Garda and Alba, and 190 _Gaards_ or Norwegian

villages; in the second, there were four churches and 90 or 110

gaards. These figures clearly indicate a considerable population.

This is still more strongly proved by the fact, that as early as

1121, an Irishman, Erick-Upsi, was created Bishop of Greenland, and

had eighteen successors. Vinland was in the jurisdiction of this

diocese. The tithes of this country figured among the revenues of the

Church in the fourteenth century, and were paid in kind.

This prosperity, and the regular relations between Europe,

Greenland, and Vinland seem to have lasted till towards the middle

of the fourteenth century. About this time the Skrellings attacked

Vesterbygd; the succour sent by the other settlements arrived too

late, and the western colony was destroyed. Osterbygd had a much

longer existence. In 1418 it still paid to the Holy See as tithes

and Peter’s Pence 3600 pounds of walrus’ tusks. At a period

anterior to this epoch, however, Queen Margaret, sovereign of

the Scandinavian dominions, impelled by motives which have been

differently interpreted, had interdicted all commerce with the

Greenland colonies. Shortly afterwards fleets of pirates, springing

from some unknown quarter, came down upon and pillaged them; the

temperature of both land and sea gradually fell; voyages became more

and more difficult, and, at last, ceased altogether. Thus, when in

1721, the Norwegian Pastor, Hans Eggede, led to those frozen lands

the first modern colony, he found nothing but ruins, and not a single

descendant of Erick and Thorfinn. What had become of them?

A letter addressed to Pope Nicholas V., quoted by M. Lacroix, throws

some light upon their fate. It is dated 1448, and informs us that,

thirty years previously, some strangers _coming from the American

coasts_ had pillaged the colony, and massacred or carried into

slavery the greater number of the inhabitants of both sexes. A great

number had, however, returned to their homes, and asked for help.

It is hardly possible to avoid referring to the latter, the white

population, tall, and with fair hair, which Captain Graa met with

on the east coast of Greenland, during his expedition in search of

Osterbygd. Notwithstanding their adoption of the Esquimaux language,

they certainly did not belong to their race.

But were all the descendants of the bold navigators who had

discovered America content to live, like the Skrellings, by the side

of ruins which recalled the relative grandeur of their fathers?

This hypothesis appears to me inadmissible. It seems evident to me,

that the greater number of the survivors must have emigrated and

sought refuge in Vinland, of the existence of which they were aware.

Perhaps they were repulsed by the mixed population of Scandinavians

and Esquimaux, who seem very early to have come into existence, and

who were, perhaps, the invaders mentioned in the letter quoted by

M. Lacroix; perhaps, again, they may have encountered warlike and

inhospitable tribes, like those mentioned in the Saga of Gudleif. But

the Norwegians would then only have pushed on further, till they met

with some hospitable shore where they could settle.

VIII. However this may be, the history of Scandinavian voyages is

sufficient to explain the appearance of the white type, even of the

fair type, in the midst of American populations. I do not hesitate

to refer to this Aryan stock, the white Esquimaux of Charlevoix, the

fair-haired men of Pierre Martyr, the fair men spoken of in some

Mexican traditions, the White Savage Chief whom the Spaniards met

with in their Cibola expedition ... etc.

Besides, the discovery and the repeated invasions of the American

coasts by the Scandinavians show the estimation in which we ought to

hold the pretended impossibility of the peopling of America. Here, we

have no longer the double _pirogues_ of the Polynesians, carrying 150

warriors; it was in _boats_ manned by thirty or forty men that Leif

and Thorwald faced the Greenland seas, reached, and returned from

Vinland. In the presence of such facts, can we regard our improved

method of navigation as _indispensable_ to long sea voyages?

Modern civilization has placed in our hands an immense power of

action unknown to our ancestors. It enables us to accomplish

works which they would have thought could only be expected from

supernatural powers. Science has placed in our hands the magic ring,

and we have become so used to employing it for the satisfaction of

our smallest wants, that it seems to us impossible to do without it.

We too often forget the resources which man possesses in himself,

and which form part of his original nature. Thus, we regard less

advanced, _less learned_ races as incapable of accomplishing that

which we should not dare to undertake without the aid which we have

been able to create for ourselves.

We have just seen how fully the history of the Polynesians and

Scandinavians contradicts these false ideas, and how they justify

the words of Lyell:—“Supposing the human genus were to disappear

entirely, with the exception of a single family, placed either upon

the Ocean of the New Continent, in Australia, or upon some coral

island of the Pacific Ocean, we may be sure that its descendants

would, in the course of ages, succeed in invading the whole earth,

although they might not have attained a higher degree of civilization

than the Esquimaux or the South Sea Islanders.”

BOOK VI.

ACCLIMATISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.

CHAPTER XIX.

INFLUENCE OF CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND RACE.

I. The human species, springing originally from a single centre of

appearance, is now universally distributed. In their innumerable

travels, its representatives have encountered the widest difference

of climate and the most opposite conditions of life, and now inhabit

both the polar and equatorial regions. It must, therefore, have

possessed the necessary aptitudes for accommodating itself to all the

natural conditions of existence; in other words, it must have had the

power of becoming _acclimatised_ and _naturalised_ in every place

where we meet with it.

The possibility of man living and prospering in other regions than

those in which his fathers lived, has been denied in a more or less

emphatic manner by the greater number of polygenists. Without going

as far as this, certain monogenists have held that a human race,

when constituted for given conditions of life, was, so to speak, a

prisoner to them, and could not effect a change without losing his

life. Other writers have maintained precisely opposite opinions, and

have held that any human group could at once become acclimatised in

any given spot.

There are exaggerations and errors in all these extreme doctrines.

II. In spite of the assertions of Knox, Frenchmen can live perfectly

well in Corsica, provided only, that they avoid the marshes of the

eastern coast, which the islanders themselves cannot inhabit. After

the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the fugitives from Provence

and Languedoc founded villages in the valley of the Danube, thus

contradicting beforehand one of the assertions of the English doctor.

English and French emigrants to the United States, and to Canada,

have not degenerated, in spite of the assertions of the same author.

Though modified, often in a very striking manner, as we shall

presently see, the Yankee _squatters_ and the Canadian _backwoodsmen_

are certainly not inferior to the first colonists who planted the

European standard in the midst of the Red-Skins.

Knox, and the anthropologists who agree either entirely or partially

with him, attribute to emigration alone the maintenance and growth

of the white population in America and elsewhere. In their opinion

the European emigrant loses, after several generations, the power of

reproduction. If the human current, which sets from Europe towards

the Colonies were to be stopped, they maintain that the population

would rapidly diminish, and the local races regain the ascendancy,

that the United States would return to the Red-Skins, and Mexico to

the descendants of Montezuma.

This assertion will easily be answered by a few statistics. They

are taken from the history of French races, which, since the treaty

of Paris in 1763, have, although in a slight degree, directly

contributed to the peopling of Canada. There were in this country:

In 1814 275,000 inhabitants of French origin.

In 1851 695,945 ” ”

In 1861 1,037,770 ” ”

In Ottawa State there were:

In 1851 Total population 15,000

” French ” 5,000

In 1863 Total population 25,000

” French ” 15,000

The history of the Acadians furnishes statistics which are quite as

convincing. From the information obtained by M. Rameau, it appears

that the entire population was descended from forty-seven families,

numbering 400 souls in 1671. In 1755 there were 18,000. Dispersed and

driven out by the English they were reduced to only 8,000. In 1861,

the number rose to 95,000 persons.

If we calculate from the preceding figures the annual increase of

French populations in America, we shall find the ratio equal or

superior to that furnished by the most favoured European populations.

This proves that the French race shows no sign of disappearance, even

in the country chosen as an example by Knox.

Without entering into too many details, let us remember that the

French have lived and increased in number at Constantia, not far from

the Cape, since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; that this

same region has been colonized by the Dutch, whose descendants, the

Boers, have migrated, and now form the Transvaal Republic; that they

have been succeeded at the Cape by the English, who, by degrees, have

overrun the whole country. We must also remember the rapid growth

of the Anglo-Australian colonies, etc.; and, finally, let us not

forget those nine families of missionaries visited by M. de Delapelin

in Polynesia, which, in all, numbered sixty-nine children, that is

to say, a mean of more than seven and a half each, and we shall be

forced to acknowledge that the most highly characterised European

white can live and increase in number in both hemispheres, at the

antipodes, and in the native countries of the most different races.

Further, the great race to which he himself belongs was not

originally European. It probably sprang from the mountain district

of the Bolor and the Hindoo-koh, where the Mamogis still represent

the original stock. In any case, the Zend-Avesta informs us that

it issued from a region where the summer lasted but two months, a

climate which almost corresponds to that of Finland. Step by step

it advanced, on the one hand as far as the Gangetic peninsula and

Ceylon, on the other to Iceland and Greenland. Afterwards, when the

era of great discoveries had commenced, it distributed its colonies

over the whole world, peopling continents, and replacing indigenous

races.

The consideration of these general facts alone, and the result of

this perpetual activity, make it impossible to deny to the Aryan race

the faculty of acclimatisation, under the most diverse conditions of

existence. All the assertions of Knox, and of his more or less avowed

disciples, fall before these facts.

What is true for the Aryan race is equally true for the Negro. The

White has transported the Black to almost every part of the globe,

and in the most distant places the Black lives side by side with his

master. Our experience as to the Yellow Races is still slight, but

we can already foresee that the result will be the same. Chinese and

Coolies have passed over into America from Asia; we shall perhaps

soon see them in Africa and in Europe.

Certain branches detached from the great ethnical stocks have already

offered similar evidences. The Gipsies, Aryans mixed, perhaps,

with Dravidians, have overrun the whole of Europe, and are now

met with everywhere. As to the Jews, we know that they are really

cosmopolitan, and that almost everywhere, in Prussia as in Algeria,

their fecundity surpasses that of the local races.

III. I do not mean by this that I consider the Aryan, or any races,

capable of always becoming at once acclimatised in any given

locality. On the contrary, there are regions which are fatal to man,

to whatever group he may belong, and however well prepared he may

seem to be to brave their influence. Such is the great estuary of the

Gaboon, where the Negro himself cannot live. The general constitution

of the inhabitants grows sensibly weaker; the reproductive organs

appear to be particularly affected, and the number of women greatly

surpasses that of the men. We know how dangerous the climate of

this country is to the European, and it will be interesting to see

whether the Paouins will in their turn yield to the deleterious

influence of these coasts, which they are gradually approaching.

We need not, moreover, go so far for examples. Who does not know the

reputation of the Maremma, and the marshes of Corsica? At one time

the swamps of the Dombe, and the mouth of the Charente, in France,

were scarcely less dangerous.

Even where the conditions are much less severe, acclimatisation

almost always demands numerous and melancholy sacrifices, which some

anthropologists have done wrong to overlook. The fact is but too

natural. A race, which has settled under the influence of certain

conditions of existence, cannot effect a change without undergoing

modification, and hence suffering. This fact will be noticed in some

detail in the chapter dedicated to the formation of these derived

groups from the species. I can here only point out the general law.

IV. Thus, every colonization of a distant country must be regarded in

the first place as a conquest attempted by the immigrating race. Now,

whether the battle has to be fought with man or with the conditions

of life, the victory is only gained at the cost of human life. We

must not, however, exaggerate the extent of inevitable losses, and

deny the possibility of acclimatisation. We must put the problem

clearly, and seek for experimental data, whence the solution may be

naturally deduced.

Every question of acclimatisation comprises two terms, which are, so

to speak, the _components_ of the _resultant_ which we are seeking

for or studying. These terms are _race_ and _conditions of life_.

We already know the exact significance of the former of these two

words, and we shall presently consider in some detail what we are

to understand by the latter. At present we will take it as simply

representing all the conditions of existence presented by a given

place, and proceed to point out its influence in acclimatisation.

We have seen that certain conditions of life appear to be fatal

to all races. In cases of this kind, we should distinguish how

much of this insalubrity is due to the regions, and how much is

the result of accidental circumstances, sometimes provoked by man

himself. The plain of the Dombe in France was once as salubrious as

the surrounding country. The exaggerated industry of the marshes

transformed it into a pestilential region, where it was quite as

fatal for foreign populations to live as it would have been in the

swamps of the Senegal. Sanitary measures are now tending to restore

it to its former condition. It is evident that we cannot reproach the

Dombe with the deleterious influence which human intelligence seems

to have undertaken to develop.

Even when the latter does not step in to vitiate the conditions

of life, we cannot charge a country with opposing unfavourable

conditions to an indigenous or foreign race, when these conditions

may be attributed to the negligence of the inhabitants, or to some

special cause, which human intelligence might modify. Deprived of

the care which rendered it healthy and luxuriant, the Campagna of

Rome has become a branch of the Pontine Marshes. On the other hand,

the environs of Rochefort have become healthy; Bouffarik, once one

of the most dangerous spots in Algeria, has become the centre of a

flourishing population. It was not, therefore, the general natural

conditions which rendered these localities dangerous, especially to

strangers, but simply _accident_. As soon as the cause is removed,

acclimatisation becomes not only possible, but easy.

Considered from this point of view, many countries, which now appear

to repel all attempts at immigration, will, perhaps, at some future

period, be particularly favourable to the development of colonizing

races. It is clear that in all cases of this kind we must distinguish

between _normal_ and _accidentally vitiated conditions of life_.

I cannot enter into all the details which this distinction would

allow, and shall confine myself to quoting a few facts.

The very progress of civilization sometimes results in the vitiation

of certain conditions of life. Such is the almost inevitable result

of the crowding together of human beings in a relatively limited

space. This is one of the points most clearly demonstrated in the

statistical researches of M. Boudin upon the comparative mortality of

the country and of barracks, for example. A comparison of our large

towns and rural districts leads to the same result, and points to a

special action upon the organs of reproduction. M. Boudin could not

find a pure-blooded Parisian whose genealogy could be traced for more

than three generations. At Besançon, town families become extinct in

less than a century, and are replaced by others from the country.

London, I have been assured, presents a similar phenomenon.

Do not ships, in which men live crowded together for months under

very unsatisfactory sanitary conditions, develop deleterious

principles, to which the crews become accustomed by degrees, but

which are, nevertheless, capable of producing the most serious

affections in the midst of surrounding populations, which, till

then, had been in a flourishing condition. Have we here one of

those phenomena to which, according to Darwin, we must attribute

the terrible mortality and increasing sterility of the Polynesian

races? Among the diseases introduced by European sailors, ought we

not to reckon phthisis, which is said to have become epidemic, as

well as hereditary, in those islands? The probabilities seem to me

to be in favour of an answer in the affirmative. Neither land nor

sky have changed in these archipelagoes since the time of their

discovery, and yet the Polynesian Islanders disappear with a terrible

rapidity, whilst their mixed races and even pure-blooded Europeans

show a redoubled fertility—a double contradiction given by facts to

autochthonic doctrines.

It is not always easy to determine, in judging of the more or less

deleterious action of given conditions of life, what should be

attributed to normal conditions, and what is the result of accidental

vitiating elements. The soil, cold, heat, dryness, or humidity of a

country are not all. The difference presented from the point of view

of acclimatisation by the two hemispheres is a striking example.

The hot regions of the southern hemisphere are, as a rule, more

accessible to white races than those in similar latitudes in the

northern hemisphere. From 30 to 35 degrees of N. lat. we find

Algeria, and especially the southern part of the United States, which

present serious difficulties against our acclimatisation. In the same

latitude of the southern hemisphere, lie the southern portion of the

Cape and New South Wales, where all European races prosper almost

immediately. M. Boudin’s calculations give the differences exactly.

He has found that the mean mortality of French and English armies was

about eleven times greater in our hemisphere than in the southern

hemisphere.

Struck by this contrast, M. Boudin endeavoured to discover its cause,

and found that it lay in the greater or less frequency and gravity

of marsh fevers. North of the equator these fevers may be traced

in Europe as far as the 59th deg. of latitude. In the south they

rarely pass the tropics, and often cease at an even smaller distance.

Tahiti, which is only 18 deg. from the geographical equator, and

almost beneath the thermal equator, is free from them. In the

southern hemisphere, the mean annual number of cases of fever in the

united English and French colonies was 1·6 in 1000; in the northern

hemisphere it was 224·9 in 1000.

Thus, marsh fevers are almost 200 times more frequent to the north

than to the south of the equator, although in South America and

Australia, for example, vast tracts are covered with standing water

under a burning sun. They are, moreover, of a far less serious nature

in the southern hemisphere. The immense lagoons of Corrientes only

occasion slight fevers. We know how dangerous, on the contrary, are

those of the Pontine Marshes, which are situated at a much greater

distance from the equator. It would be much more difficult for a

European to live in Italy upon the banks of the Carigliano, than in

America upon those of the Parana.

In spite of some experiments and ingenious theories, these

differences between localities, apparently presenting almost

identical general physical conditions, have not yet been explained.

The researches of M. Boudin, however, justify us in regarding these

marsh miasmata as very probably the greatest and often the only

obstacle to the acclimatisation of Europeans in the greater number of

those places to which the spirit of enterprise has led them. There

is something very encouraging and instructive in this fact. We know

by what combination of circumstances these pestilential miasmata

are engendered; we know how it is possible to resist them. Man can,

then, wherever he may go, fight against nature, and at least somewhat

ameliorate the conditions of acclimatisation. It has, until now, been

impossible to make a whole country healthy in a short space of time.

This was a work which time alone seemed to be able to accomplish,

very often at a heavy cost of human life. It seems as if the

introduction of the eucalyptus would, in a great measure at least,

tend to diminish these sacrifices.

Should, however, the tree brought from Australia by M. Ramel justify

all our hopes, we shall find that some care must still be taken in

the choice of _station_. I shall presently show how, in countries

which are apparently most dangerous, there are circumscribed

spots where acclimatisation takes place almost immediately. It is

clear that new comers ought to look carefully for these favoured

localities, and pitch their tents there. The contrary has almost

always been, and still is, the case. They allow themselves to be

seduced by the beauty and fertility of the alluvial lands situated at

the mouth of some river, or upon the shores of some bay calculated to

facilitate commerce, without considering their unhealthiness. They

settle down and build there, without being disturbed by the losses

which overwhelm fresh arrivals; and thus it is that pestilential

flats, like that of Batavia, have become inhabited.

V. I cannot here consider in any detail the action of conditions of

life upon human races, without anticipating considerations which

will be more appropriate in another chapter. I shall only point out

a very general fact, and one of great interest in the problem of

acclimatisation.

We know that the animal and vegetable races of one species, although

in reality subject to the same influences, have, nevertheless, their

special aptitudes; and, more especially, some affection which is very

general in one will be very rare in another. The case is precisely

similar with human races.

Marsh fevers act in the same manner upon all men. The Negro suffers

and dies from fever on the banks of the Niger, but in a much less

degree than the White. Moreover, the two races, when transposed

to India, preserve, in this respect, almost the same relations.

Compared with local races, the Negro still retains the ascendancy;

he is everywhere the last attacked by malarious emanations. Born in

a country where he is obliged almost incessantly and universally to

breathe them, descended from ancestors, who from prehistoric times

have lived in this poisoned air, he has become acclimatised to it

more than any other race; on this account alone, he is able to

prosper in places where the White would suffer for a long time.

On the other hand, the Negro has a delicate chest, and no race is so

subject to consumption, whilst this malady is much more rarely fatal

to the White or to the Malay.

From the extreme differences presented by the White and the Negro it

follows that the general conditions of acclimatisation are reversed

in the two races. A moderately warm air which is impregnated with

malarious emanations is dangerous to the European. A moderate degree

even of damp cold will be fatal to the Negro.

These few facts are sufficient to show that the conditions of

acclimatisation vary with the race; that the same climate cannot

exercise the same kind of action upon different races, and that

complete acclimatisation, that is to say, _naturalisation_, can only

follow upon the harmony of these two terms—race and conditions of

life.

CHAPTER XX.

CONDITIONS OF ACCLIMATISATION.

I. The possibility of establishing the harmony, of which I have

spoken in the preceding chapter, has been denied. It has been

argued that it must exist beforehand, and that instead of becoming

acclimatised, people merely become _accustomed_ to a given place. It

will be easy to show from what takes place in animals and plants,

that there is, in their case, something more than this, and that the

organisation is sometimes modified in its most intimate relations so

as to conform to the exigencies of conditions of life, which are by

nature inflexible.

The chrysanthemum (_Pyretrum sinense_), which adorns our gardens,

came, as we know, originally from China. Introduced into France in

1790, it flourished there and produced fruit which it was unable to

ripen, so that commerce alone supplied our flower gardens with the

necessary seed for more than sixty years. The attempt to rear it in

hot-houses and frames met with very small success. In 1852 a few

plants were observed to flower and to fruit sooner than the others;

the seeds ripened, and France now produces all the seed which she

requires. A small number of accidentally precocious plants have,

therefore, acclimatised this beautiful flower.

The history of the Egyptian goose (_Anser egyptiacus_) is still more

striking. Brought to France in 1801, by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, this

species at first laid in December, as in its native country. It

reared its brood in the depth of winter, and consequently under very

unfavourable circumstances. Several generations were, nevertheless,

reared at the Museum. Now in 1844 the birds laid in February, the

following year in March, and in 1846 in April, the time at which

our common goose lays. Is it not clear that the organisation of the

Egyptian goose had accommodated itself to the conditions imposed by

our climate?

This marvellous faculty of living beings is sometimes even

inconvenient. French vines when removed to the island of Bourbon

yield grapes continually, so that the mixture of clusters in every

stage of development and maturity has been a serious obstacle in the

manufacture of the wine. Silkworms have acted in a similar manner;

they have laid their eggs and spun their cocoons with perfect

indifference as to the season of the year, and in such an irregular

manner as to force breeders to give up rearing them.

Acclimatisation, that is to say, _physiological adaptation_ to new

conditions of life, is an incontestable fact. All our domestic races

which have been imported into America are prospering there. When the

conditions of existence have been almost the same as those of their

native country, they have changed but little. When the new conditions

have differed too widely from the old ones, local races have been

formed; and thus, though perhaps assisted by human industry, _pigs

with fleece_ are to be found on the cold plateaux of the Cordilleras,

_sheep with hair_ in the warm valleys of the Madeleine, and _hairless

cattle_ in the burning plains of Mariquita. Is it not clear that

these pigs, sheep, and oxen, these descendants of our races in

temperate climates, have established a harmony between themselves and

the conditions of life?

II. But, as I said before, this harmony is scarcely ever obtained

without struggles and sacrifices. In this respect again man resembles

plants and animals. Let us see, in the first place, what may be

learnt on this subject from these beings of inferior organisation.

It is well known that two kinds of wheat are recognised by

agriculturalists, one of which is sown in spring and the other in

autumn, both being reaped at about the same time. It is evident that

the conditions of development are very different in the two cases.

To sow a spring wheat in autumn, was, so to speak, changing the

condition of existence, and, consequently, attempting an experiment

in acclimatisation. This was done by the celebrated Abbé Tessier.

A hundred seeds of autumn wheat were sown in spring; they all came

up and produced young plants, which passed through the usual stages

of vegetation. Only ten plants, however, formed seeds, which only

ripened upon four plants. A hundred seeds of this first crop produced

fifty fertile plants. In the third generation the hundred seeds

produced corn. The inverse experiment gave similar results.

The acclimatisation of wheat at Sierra Leone offers still more

instructive peculiarities. The first year almost all the seed ran

to leaf; the ears were very few, and poorly filled. The seeds of

this first crop were sown; a great number did not come, up at all.

Those which survived were a little more fertile. Much patience was,

however, required, and many generations passed before normal crops

were obtained. We see that in Tessier’s experiment all the seeds of

wheat and their germs lived, but the grain was wanting, or was more

or less abortive. There was, then, a _loss of generations_. The same

thing occurred at Sierra Leone. Moreover, the second time the seed

was sown, some of it never came up at all. Here, therefore, the loss

of individuals was added to that of generations.

The history of our poultry which has been imported into America,

presents equally significant facts. At Cuzco the broods are just as

large as in Europe. Garcilasso de la Véga tells us, however, that in

his time the eggs were few, and the chickens difficult to rear. The

species has, since then, become acclimatised.

When M. Roulin made his observations upon the geese imported into

Bogota, it was more than twenty years since they had been first

brought to that high plateau, and, even then, they had not attained

their normal fecundity. They were not, however, far from it, while

at first the eggs were very rare. A quarter, at the most, of the

eggs were hatched, and half the goslings died before the end of

the first month. Thus, on the one hand, the Bogota breeder did not

obtain nearly as many eggs as he would have done in Europe, while,

on the other hand, at the end of a period scarcely equal to the

two-hundredth part of the life of the goose, he obtained from these

eggs scarcely one-eighth of what they would have produced in Europe.

The history of these Bogota geese is most instructive. At the outset

we meet with all those circumstances which would seem to justify

us in the prediction of a failure. The infertility of the females,

as attested by the rarity of the eggs, and that of the males, as

shown in the strong proportion of addle eggs, point to a serious

physiological injury to the organs whose action alone insures the

permanence of the species. The enormous mortality among the young

birds betrayed a no less serious alteration in the components of

individual life. Nevertheless, at the time of M. Roulin’s journey,

acclimatisation had been almost realised, and must without doubt now

be completed.

More than twenty years were, however, necessary for the organisation

of this European bird to establish a harmony between itself and the

conditions of existence on the high plateaus of America. The breeders

were consequently forced to submit to many losses, affecting both

generations and individuals.

We see what took place in the case of the fowls and geese as well

as in that of the wheat. Shortly after their emigration the climate

killed all those who were unable to conform to the new exigencies. A

certain number offered sufficient resistance to live almost as long

as they would have done under their natural conditions of existence;

but their weakened organisation was unfitted for generation, or

could only produce beings which at once succumbed. Through all

these disasters, however, a few privileged organisations conformed,

from the first, more or less to the new exigencies. With slight

modifications they transmitted their own acquirements combined with

the suitable aptitudes to their progeny, who in turn made further

advances in the direction opened by their parents; and from year

to year the adaptation was more complete, the acclimatisation more

nearly realised.

But it is evident that years here represent generations. It is only

from parent to offspring, through heredity and accumulation, that

the living being becomes modified, and by degrees harmonises with

the conditions of life. When, however, we are no longer studying

an animal, plant, or a bird, which has the faculty of yearly

reproduction, but species or races of a more tardy reproduction, we

must remember that it is necessary to reckon by generations, and not

by years.

III. Such are the data by which we are enabled to judge of the

attempts at acclimatisation made by man himself. I cannot too

often repeat the fact that, in common with organised and living

beings, we are subject to all the general laws which govern life

and organisation in animals and plants. Our intelligence is

unquestionably of assistance to us in our struggles with nature, but,

unfortunately, the power which we derive from her is limited, and in

no case are we placed at greater disadvantage than in the increasing

struggle demanded by a considerable change in conditions of life. The

most ingenious efforts are then unable to free man from vicissitudes

more or less analogous to those suffered by the wheat of Sierra

Leone, the fowls at Cuzco, and the geese at Bogota.

We must, then, almost always be prepared for sacrifices, the extent

and gravity of which will be proportionate to the differences, as

regards conditions of existence, between the two countries, and we

must almost always expect to lose a certain number of individuals

and generations. Everything depends upon judging facts fairly, not

exaggerating their importance, and seeing how far they justify a hope

of success in spite of appearances. If the losses are merely equal to

those I have just mentioned, or, better still, if they are fewer in

number, we may prophesy a favourable result; and, if the victory is

worth the price, we must leave the rest to perseverance and time.

IV. Events in Algeria confirm these observations. After the conquest

it was everywhere, as also in France, a question whether it would

be possible to colonise the country taken from the Turks and Arabs.

Dr. Knox declared most emphatically that such a colonisation was

impossible, and that the French would never be able to increase or

even live in Africa. It must be confessed that this opinion found

many and strong supporters. After the first few years of occupation

the generals, as well as the doctors, were almost all of the same

opinion. M. Boudin supported, with distressing statistics, the

views of his colleagues, Marshal Bugeaud and Generals Duvivier and

Cavaignac.

Relying upon what I know to have taken place with regard to birds, I

did not hesitate to attack these discouraging prophecies. Military

and civil mortality was in 1845 doubtless much more considerable in

Algeria than in France, and the number of deaths must again have

exceeded that of births. But emigration was at that time abundant

and continual. Now, if the influx of new arrivals filled the voids

caused by the change in conditions of existence, it at the same time

augmented the mortality by continually bringing forward recruits

to this war against conditions of life. The rate of deaths amongst

children was almost double that reported by French statistics; but

the proportion of deaths was still much less than that among the

first geese at Bogota. Finally, far from having been weakened, the

fertility of the women had increased; the sources of life were

therefore much less affected in this case than upon the high plateaus

of America.

From all these considerations, I felt justified in concluding

that the acclimatisation of the French in Algeria was certain of

success, and would not require twenty generations. My opinion has

been corroborated by events much sooner than I expected. The census

of 1870 showed in the European population of Algeria an increase of

25,000, due almost entirely to the superiority of the number of

births over that of deaths. The action of the first generation born

in the country began to make itself felt, and from that time the

result has been still more striking. In two or three more generations

the French Creole will live in Algeria quite as well as his ancestors

have lived in France.

There are, however, distinctions which must be drawn with regard to

the facility of acclimatisation in Algeria, between the different

European races, and even between the inhabitants of the north and

south of France. The statistics offered by MM. Boudin, Martin, and

Foley show clearly that the Spaniards and Maltese stand the Algerian

climate infinitely better than the English, Belgians, or Germans.

Now, the inhabitants of the north of France strongly resemble the

latter nations in race and habits. In both these respects the

inhabitants of southern France are connected, on the contrary, with

the inhabitants of Malta and Spain. We might, therefore, without much

fear of error, prophesy that the latter had, either for themselves or

their descendants, a much greater chance of surviving than the French

of Alsatian and Flemish origin. Experience has again fully confirmed

these deductions of theory.

V. The information which we derive from these facts taking place,

so to speak, at our very doors, and among races with which we are

very closely connected, may, with perfect justice, be applied to

conditions of life more widely different in character, to races

which are much more distinct from each other than the French and

the Belgians. Nevertheless, the conclusion so obtained would

have the same value as that drawn from a general formula, the

signification of which changes with the data. When the question is

one of acclimatisation, these data always rise from the two elements

mentioned above: conditions of race and life. If either vary, even

though it be but slightly and within narrow limits, the result is

necessarily altered, and often in a very unexpected manner. Every

question of acclimatisation, in reality then, forms a separate

problem, which often, again, is sub-divided into a number of

particular cases, each of which demands a special solution. Without

leaving the French colonies, we can quote on this subject another

most striking example.

Anthropologists, as well as doctors, have often questioned the

possibility of the acclimatisation of Europeans in the archipelagoes

of the great Mexican Gulf, which, through yellow fever and the

influences by which it is developed, is particularly fatal to him.

At first sight, it is true, a number of general facts seem to leave

no doubt that the answer should be in the affirmative. Since the

discovery of America Europeans have always occupied these islands,

and the White race, bringing with it the Negro, have everywhere

replaced the Caribbean race. In answer to this statement, it has been

argued that these islands are one of the most favourite parts of

the globe for emigration, and that by this means alone a population

is maintained, which, if left to itself, would soon disappear.

Calculations are opposed to calculations, statistics to statistics,

and were we to approach the subject without analysing facts, the

question would appear most obscure.

To solve it in those cases only in which France is interested, we

will speak only of Guadeloupe and Martinique. We know that these

islands were colonised by the French only 235 years ago. Even

allowing the very liberal ratio of four generations to the century,

we find that, at the most, ten generations have elapsed in these

islands, the climate of which is of all others the most fatal to

Europeans. Now, more than twenty generations were necessary to

acclimatise the geese at Bogota. The experiment, therefore, is not

complete. Nevertheless, in presence of the facts of longevity and

fecundity attested by M. Simonot, we do not hesitate to share his

opinions. Although the French race may not yet be acclimatised in

Martinique and Guadeloupe, we may be certain that it soon will be.

It is no less true that statistics attest an excess of deaths over

births. The information which they furnish has, however, been

presented without distinction. Old and new creoles have been mixed

together, as well as the latest emigrants, in a common estimate.

Elements, which are fundamentally very different have thus been

confounded. For a work of this kind to have any real value, it is

absolutely necessary to divide the population into classes determined

by the time of emigration, and to estimate the length of time

itself by the number of generations. By proceeding in this manner,

we shall undoubtedly establish in the mortality of groups striking

differences, more or less analogous to those displayed by the

generations of plants and animals transported into Africa or America.

The statistics in question are still further vitiated by a fault,

which is completely exposed by M. Walther in his work upon

Guadeloupe. He, also, has drawn up tables of mortality; only, instead

of taking the population _en masse_, he studied each district

separately. Very significant differences then made their appearance.

Considered as a whole the population of Guadeloupe offers an annual

excess of 0·46 deaths over births, that is to say, nearly one-half

per cent. In presence of these facts, the statisticians whose views I

am attacking, would certainly have concluded that the European is not

acclimatised in Guadeloupe, and have declared, that, after a certain

time, which might easily be calculated, this colonial population

would become extinct, if the voids were not incessantly filled by

fresh immigrants.

When, however, we examine the table of mortality taken by districts,

we arrive at very different conclusions. These districts number

thirty-one. Now, in fifteen the number of births is greater than that

of deaths. In the little island of Marie-Galante this is the case in

two districts out of three. Thus, the terrible calculations of the

mean mortality are due entirely to the exaggeration of mortality in

certain districts, while the European has become acclimatised in the

others.

The tables of mortality drawn up in Algeria by M. Boudin present

analogous facts. Out of sixty-nine localities, fifty-five have shown,

since 1857, an excess of births over deaths.

The general result obtained by M. Walther may be thus explained. The

French race is acclimatised in Guadeloupe in fifteen localities, but

not in the remaining sixteen. Of these two statements, the first

should be considered as definitely proved; the second requires

confirmation, for a closer examination of the populations of the

most unhealthy districts, and a study of them in classes, is still

required.

However this may be, every unprejudiced person will acknowledge that

we can no longer question the fact of acclimatisation in _Guadeloupe_

as a whole. It should now only be a question of acclimatisation at

_Basse terra_, at _Pointe-à-Pitre_, at _Pointe-Noire_, etc.

VI. The French Antilles, as also the greater number of the sister

islands, are the scene of valuable experiments upon the aptitude of

different human races to stand this exceptional climate, which is one

of the most difficult to overcome. The Negro was carried there by

force very shortly after the occupation of the islands by the Whites,

and has lived there in a state of slavery till within the last few

years. As the condition of the parents was inherited by the children,

there is little room for doubt, but that after a given time the local

multiplication of the Blacks would have sufficed for all the wants of

agriculture and industry, if the race had become acclimatised. The

incessant activity of the slave trade, seems to show that the number

of deaths must have greatly exceeded that of births. There appears to

be no doubt as to the truth of the fact for the island of Cuba or for

Jamaica. General Tulloch, struck by the mortality of the Negroes in

the English Antilles, has not hesitated to declare that if the trade

were once suppressed, the whole race would disappear in these islands

before the close of a century. The researches of M. Boudin justify us

in regarding this assertion as an exaggeration, at least as regards

the French possessions.

Neither the English nor the French author has, however, taken into

consideration a circumstance, the importance of which cannot be

denied. I allude to the conditions imposed upon the Negro by slavery.

It is clear that the character and conduct of the master played an

important part in the probability of the life or death of the slave.

Without feeling himself to be, and without being inhuman, the master

might demand more labour from him than his nature could support,

or violate those instincts, the free play of which is necessary to

health. This was certainly the case in Cuba, where it was the general

practice to get as much out of the slaves as possible, thus creating

the necessity for more frequent renewal. We have here, doubtless, one

of those causes by which the mortality of a race, better fitted than

ours for intertropical climates, is so immoderately increased. Facts

seem to justify these conjectures. “Since the abolition of slavery,”

says M. Elisée Reclus, “the Negro population has been on the increase

in the English islands.”

However singular this fact may appear to some anthropologists, it

is only a repetition of what took place in Brazil. There again, it

was said, that the slave trade alone maintained a black population,

which was destined to diminish and disappear as soon as this enforced

immigration should cease. Authentic documents show that the opposite

has taken place. The slave trade was abolished long before slavery in

this great Empire. For many years the proprietors, being unable to

purchase fresh slaves, took care of those in their possession, and

from that time the Negroes have multiplied. Thus it was that during

the period in which the missionaries of the Jesuits flourished, that

portion of the black race in which they were interested was observed

to increase in an extraordinary manner, whilst in the rich haciendas,

where it was uncared for and overworked, it dwindled away.

By the side of the Negro Creole, there are now in the French Antilles

labourers engaged more or less voluntarily from the same coasts of

Africa, representatives of the Semitic white race from Madeira,

Chinese of yellow race, and Indian coolies, who are almost all

dravidian, and consequently a cross between the black and the yellow.

It will be interesting at some future time, to show what resistance

each of these nations has offered to the terrible climate they are

confronting. The experiment is, at present, only begun. Nevertheless

M. Walther has already obtained some interesting data at Guadeloupe.

The mean annual mortality of the Creoles is 3·28 per 100; that of

immigrants, 9·66 for the Chinese; 7·68 for Negroes; 7·12 for Hindoos;

and 5·80 for the natives of Madeira. Unfortunately, the statistics

are doubtful, and differ from those which M. Du Hailly has given for

Martinique. They must, however, both be recorded as the starting

point for new study. There is, moreover, no cause for despair. It is

clear, for example, that the natives of Madeira will very quickly

become acclimatised in Guadeloupe, as is already the case in Cuba,

and the much more serious mortality of the Negro, Chinese, and Hindoo

races does not prove the impossibility of their ever inhabiting these

islands.

VII. The conditions of life and the nature of the race are not

all in the numerous problems raised by acclimatisation. Man, even

individually, brings his special elements to bear upon it. The savage

and the modern European are placed, by the mere fact of the social

differences which separate them, in conditions often opposite, and

not always in favour of the latter.

Even the marvels of modern industry, whilst facilitating immigration

into distant lands, make it more dangerous. Railways and steamers

have reduced the longest journeys to a mere nothing. Lands, which

it took our ancestors centuries to people, distances which our own

fathers could only travel over in several months, are accomplished by

us in a few days. We have here, then, yet another to be added to the

many difficulties of acclimatisation. It is a common thing in Paris

to hear men complain of the effects of a mere journey from Algiers.

The rapidity of the transit gives a shock to the organisation,

although tending to replace it under its natural conditions of life.

The shock is necessarily greater when the journey is made in the

other direction, and we go against our physical habits, instead of

returning to them. And, when after a few days’ voyage, instead of

Algiers, we land at Rio de Janeiro or the Antilles, the shock must be

great indeed.

Modern civilisation is also answerable to a great extent for the

losses involved by every settlement in a climate differing too widely

from our own. By reason of the security with which she surrounds the

poor as well as the rich, of the at least relative ease which is

enjoyed by all classes of society, we are little prepared for the

struggle for existence. Without going so far back as primitive man or

the Aryans, let us simply call to mind Balbao, Pizarro, Cortez, Soto,

Monbars, and their rough companions; can the present generation offer

such a resistance as theirs?

It is not, however, by its luxuries only that civilisation renders

us unfit to confront the chances of acclimatisation. It is also, and

principally, by the vices which too often accompany it. M. Bolot, who

was in charge of a number of men employed for the construction of a

pier at Grand Bassam, said to Captain Vallon: “A Sunday will put more

of my men in the hospital, than three days of work in the full heat

of the sun.” This was because Sunday was given up to debauchery.

Here, again, is a fact forming, so to speak, an experiment such as

might have been imagined by a physiologist. The Isle of Bourbon

passes for one of those disastrous climates to which the European

cannot become acclimatised. The tables of mortality which relate to

the whole population do, in fact, show that the deaths exceed the

births to a formidable extent. This is, however, another of those

sweeping results, into which we must inquire if we wish to understand

its true meaning.

The Whites of Bourbon form, in reality, two classes, or rather two

races, distinct in their manners and customs. The former includes the

population of towns and large settlements, who lead the ordinary life

of colonists, and especially avoid agricultural labour, considered by

Creoles as degrading as well as fatal. The latter includes the _Mean

Whites_, descendants of the original colonists, who, too poor to buy

slaves, were forced to cultivate the land with their own hands.

Now, of these two classes of colonists, it is the former alone which

supply the mortality to which attention is so often drawn. The Mean

Whites live as their fathers lived; they inhabit and cultivate the

less fertile districts of the island. Far from having deteriorated,

their race has improved, and the women, in particular, are remarkable

for beauty of form and feature. The race maintains itself perfectly,

and seems to be on the increase. Crossing, moreover, has no influence

in the matter, for the Mean White, proud of the purity of blood which

constitutes his nobility, will not, at any price, ally himself with

the Negro or Coolie.

Thus at Bourbon, indolence, and the habits which it involves, destroy

the rich, and those who try to imitate them, while the poor become

acclimatised through sobriety, purity of manners, and a moderate

amount of work. From the latter, anthropologists and all the world

may learn a lesson of grave importance, at once scientific and moral.

VIII. Finally, acclimatisation and naturalisation are as universal in

history as migration, of which they are the consequence. We see them

daily accomplished under our very eyes, and with the most different

races, though almost invariably at the price of human life. In many

places, they are purchased very cheaply, so much so, that study

alone teaches us that new conditions of life in no case entirely

lose their rights. In others, specially in countries characterised

by an extreme climate, they involve considerable losses. But there

is nothing to authorise us to deny the existence of acclimatisation

and naturalisation. Everything, on the contrary, proves that if they

are willing to submit to the necessary sacrifices, all human races

may live and prosper in almost every climate which is not vitiated by

accidental causes.

IX. In this case, as in many others, the present explains the past,

which also contributes its share of information. Relying upon our

own daily experience, and upon facts borrowed from history, we can

form a general idea of the manner in which the world has been peopled.

The history of the Aryan race alone, gives us, so to speak, that of

the whole species. We see it starting from the Bolor, and Hindoo Koh,

from the Eeriéné Veedjo, where the summer only lasted two months,

descending into Bokhara, and overrunning Persia and Cabul before

reaching the basin of the Indus. Eleven stations mark this route

followed by the Aryans before reaching the Ganges. We there find

them again slowly advancing, though all the time sending forth as a

vanguard, those _pious heroes_, who slew the Rakchassas, and prepared

the way for conquests. The race is now in the tropics in India, in

the Polar circle in Greenland, where the Norwegians and Danes have

replaced the Sea-Kings; it spreads over an immense region of more or

less temperate climate, and possesses colonies in every part of the

world.

The human species must have made a beginning like the Aryans. Upon

leaving their centre of creation, it was by slow stages, that the

primitive colonists, ancestors of all existing races, marched forth

to the conquest of the uninhabited world. They thus accustomed

themselves to the different conditions of existence imposed upon them

by the north, the south, the east, or the west, cold or heat, plain

or mountain. Diverging in every direction, and meeting with different

conditions of life, they gradually established a harmony between

themselves and each one of them. Thus acclimatisation, advancing at

the same rate as geographical conquest, was less fatal. The struggle,

however, though mitigated indeed by the slowness of the advance,

still existed, and many pioneers must have fallen upon the route. But

the survivors had only nature to face, and, therefore, succeeded, and

peopled the world.

BOOK VII.

PRIMITIVE MAN.—FORMATION OF THE HUMAN RACES.

CHAPTER XXI.

PRIMITIVE MAN.

I. The primitive type of the human species must necessarily have

been effaced, and have disappeared. The enforced migrations, and the

actions of climate, must of themselves have produced this result.

Man has passed through two geological epochs; perhaps his centre of

appearance is no longer in existence; at any rate, the conditions are

very different to those prevailing when humanity began its existence.

When everything was changing round him, man could not avoid being

changed also. Crossing, also, has certainly played its part in this

transformation. I shall shortly return to these different points

which I only allude to here.

But, on the other hand, we shall see that the skull of the most

ancient Quaternary race is repeated not only in some Australian

tribes, but in Europe, and in men who have played an important part

among their fellow-countrymen. The other races of the same epoch,

judging from the skull, have many representatives amongst us.

They have, nevertheless, passed through one of the two geological

revolutions, which separates us from our original stock. It is then

not impossible that the latter may have transmitted to a certain

number of men, perhaps scattered in time and space, at least a part

of its characters.

Unfortunately, we do not know where to seek for reproductions,

bearing more or less resemblance to the primitive type; and, for

want of information it would be impossible to recognise them as

such, if we were to meet with them. Here, therefore, observation

alone can furnish no data. But, when it is aided by physiology, some

conjectures are possible.

II. We know that among animals atavism often causes the reappearance

of ancestral characters, even when a careful selection has acted upon

hundreds of generations. The silkworms of the Cévennes which yield

white cocoons, and the black sheep of Spain furnish examples. In man,

where selection does not exist, such facts would be much more likely

to be produced. Some characters of our first ancestors ought to

appear in isolated cases or collectively in all human races; perhaps,

there are some which have been preserved in one or more groups.

Consequently, by searching for them, and classifying those which

appear in a more or less erratic manner among races which are most

dissimilar in all other respects, we shall probably be able to form a

partial reproduction of the primitive human type.

In this respect, it is difficult to avoid attaching a real importance

to the prognathism of the upper jaw. This anatomical feature is very

pronounced in almost all Negro races: it is also strongly marked in

certain Yellow races. It is considerably diminished among Whites:

but, nevertheless, it appears at times almost as strongly marked as

in the two other groups: it existed in Quaternary man. Everything

seems to indicate that it must have been as strongly developed in our

first ancestors.

Phenomena of atavism acting on the colouring are of frequent

occurrence among animals.

They are equally prevalent in the human species. This consideration

causes me to attach real importance to the opinion of M. de Salles,

who attributes red hair to the earliest men. In fact, among all

human races, individuals have been noticed whose hair more or less

approaches to this tint.

The experiments of Darwin upon the effects of crossing between very

different races of pigeons led to the same conclusion. He found that

the crossings resulted in the reappearance of certain peculiarities

of colour in the mongrels, which were peculiar to the original

_species_, and which had disappeared in the two parent _races_. Now

in our colonies the offspring of a Mulatto and a White frequently

has red hair. In Europe also, M. Hamy has remarked that children are

born with red hair, when one of the parents is decidedly dark and the

other decidedly fair. In all cases of this nature, we should say that

the primitive character reasserts itself, being accidentally acquired

by the reciprocal neutralisation of opposed ethnical characters.

When examined under the microscope, the cutaneous pigment which gives

the human body its characteristic colour, doubtless shows different

tints, but yellow is always present as a colouring element. If we

apply to man the laws which Isidore Geoffroy has deduced from his

observations upon animals, we are led to conclude that this colour

originally predominated. When the White is crossed with the Negro,

the yellow colouring element at once asserts itself and generally

appears to predominate. In the colonies the general term of _yellows_

is sometimes given to mulattos. This result is again explained by

the experiments of Darwin; and the conclusion is admissible that the

original colour of man more or less approximated to this tint.

Certain facts which have been observed among Negroes seem also to

confirm this conclusion. Among the most strongly characterised

peoples belonging to this type, the appearance has been noticed of

individuals of a lighter colour, sometimes almost resembling the

Whites in this respect, sometimes tending more or less to yellow,

without presenting any of the phenomena of teratological albinism.

These individual peculiarities of colour may be attributed to

atavism. Now among no white or yellow race have facts been noticed

which can be regarded as reciprocal to the preceding.

Nothing therefore authorises us to regard the Negro race as having

preceded the other two; and, on the contrary, the contrast which I

have just pointed out leads to the conclusion that the ancestors of

the negro were a race of a much lighter colour.

On the other hand, we know that the Aryan race is the latest. The

question of priority thus lies between the Semitic, the Allophylian,

and the group of yellow races. What I have said above of the

fundamental colour being present as an element in the colour of all

races, and the phenomena of crossing, point with some probability in

favour of the latter.

Philology seems to confirm this view. Monosyllabic languages, which

imply the first attempts at human speech, only exist among the

yellow races. All the Negro races and the Allophylian Whites speak

agglutinative languages, which answer to the second form which man

gave to the expression of his thoughts. Aryans and Semites both have

inflectional languages.

Philology then seems to lead to the same conclusion as physiology,

and even to give an appearance of greater probability to these

conjectures, which I only give for what they are worth.

III. We know nothing of primitive man; we acknowledge that, from want

of information, it would be impossible to recognise him. All that the

present state of our knowledge allows us to say is that, according

to all appearance he ought to be characterised by a certain amount

of prognathism, and have neither a black skin nor woolly hair. It

is also fairly probable that his colour would resemble that of the

yellow races, and his hair be more or less red. Finally everything

tends to the conclusion that the language of our earliest ancestors

was a more or less pronounced monosyllabic one.

These are only conjectures, and they amount to but little, but this

little is founded upon experiment and observation.

IV. We can also only form very vague conjectures upon the degree of

intellectual development which man exhibited at his birth and during

his first generations. At any rate it is possible to believe that he

did not enter upon the scene of the world with innate knowledge, and

the instinctive industries which belong to animals. Still less did he

appear in a fully civilised state “mature in body and mind” as thinks

the Comte Eusèbe de Salles. All traditions point to a period when

human knowledge was very small, when man was ignorant of industries,

to our eyes very elementary, and which we see appear in succession.

Upon this point the Bible agrees with classical mythology. The

Hebrews have their Tubal Cain, and the Greeks their Triptolemos.

Prehistoric studies confirm this progressive development in Western

Europe upon every point. Tertiary industries precede quaternary.

The whole history of races seems to me to give, at least in part,

a representation of that of the Species; and our thoughts go back

almost irresistibly to the time when man found himself face to face

with creation, armed solely with the aptitudes which were destined to

undergo such a marvellous development.

Thanks to these aptitudes, at a very early period he satisfied at

least the first wants of existence. The miocene man of La Beauce

already knew the use of fire and worked flint. However rough and

rudimentary his instruments may have been, he had even then an

industry, and according to all appearance fed partly upon cooked

food. The man of Saint-Prest, with his small lozenge-shaped

arrow-heads, worked only on one side, with his rough hatchets, could

undoubtedly attack and kill the great contemporary mammalia. He

possessed _scrapers_ which he used to prepare their skins with, and

_awls_, which perhaps served as needles. From this distant period,

upon which science has thrown as yet but little light, man reveals

his existence by two great facts, and shows his superiority to the

whole animal creation.

CHAPTER XXII.

FORMATION OF HUMAN RACES UNDER THE SOLE INFLUENCE OF CONDITIONS OF

LIFE AND HEREDITY.

I. The first men who peopled the centre of human appearance must at

first have differed from each other only in individual features. At

their beginning and during an indefinite lapse of time, mankind could

only have been homogeneous, as is every animal and vegetable species

which is restricted to an area of small extent.

At the present time, we find mankind composed of numerous groups,

which have peculiar characters, and constitute so many distinct

races. How have these races originated? and how have they grown and

multiplied?

To give a definite reply to these questions, by going back from

recent effects to first causes, is still impossible, and perhaps will

always be so. Nevertheless, science may even now approach the general

aspects of the problem. We are well acquainted with the circumstances

under which varieties originate and races are formed among plants

and animals: we have established in man the occurrence of a number

of phenomena, which are in this respect identical, or very similar

to those exhibited by the two inferior kingdoms. We are therefore

clearly authorised to apply inferences drawn from them to ourselves,

connecting particular with general facts. This study is instructive

in many respects. Unfortunately, we cannot fully enter upon it here;

we can only select some facts in the history of animals to justify

our conclusions.

II. The problem of the formation of human races presents two very

distinct cases. Man at first was subject to the sole action of

_natural modifying agents_. Under this influence _pure races_ were

formed. When these races came in contact, they were _crossed_;

this resulted in the formation of _mixed races_. Without being

antagonistic to the natural forces, _crossing_ modifies them by its

peculiar phenomena, and sometimes masks their manifestations. The two

cases, therefore, require separate examination. We will begin with

the first.

III. Every organic species considered as a whole appears to be

subjected to the action of two forces, one of which tends to maintain

and the other to modify its characters. To what cause can this double

action be referred? This is a question put by the greatest thinkers

and the most eminent physiologists, from Aristotle and Hippocrates to

Burdach and J. Müller.

It is not the _resemblances_ existing between the members of the

same species, or between the members of one family, which perplex

philosophers: all agree in referring them to _heredity_. The problem

lies rather in the _differences_. Not only in the considerable

differences which are established between races; but more especially

in the _shades_ constituting the _individual traits_ which

distinguish father from son, or brother from brother. This is in

reality the fundamental difficulty, and many hypotheses have been

proposed for its solution. Prosper Lucas, after having discussed them

separately, regarded them all as insufficient, and believed that,

side by side with _heredity_, which maintains types, we ought to

admit a special force, _innateness_ (_l’innéité_) which diversifies

them.

We can, however, account for the double tendency exhibited by living

beings, without having recourse to a new force. For this purpose it

is sufficient to push the analysis of phenomena a little further than

is customary, and to obtain a clear idea of the part played by the

_conditions of life_ (_milieu_) and _heredity_. As a general rule an

action is attributed to the first, which everywhere and at all times

is a modifying one, and to the second a purely conservative action.

Now it may be easily shown that this is not the case; and that each

of these causes acts in an inverse manner according to circumstances.

IV. By virtue of the laws of heredity, the father and mother tend

equally to transmit to their offspring their own character. However

similar they may be supposed to be, there are always some differences

between them; and the nature of the new being is necessarily a

compromise between two different tendencies. The son cannot,

therefore, always resemble his father exactly. In him the characters

_common_ to both parents will easily be exaggerated; the _opposite_

characters will be neutralised; and the _different_ characters will

produce a _resultant_, as distinct from the two components as green

is from yellow and blue. Thus even by virtue of its own tendencies,

and in consequence of the enforced co-operation of the sexes, _direct

and immediate heredity_ becomes, in some respects, a cause of

variation.

_Mediate and indirect heredity_, justly compared by Burdach to

geneagenetic phenomena, as well as _atavism_, which suddenly

reproduces with great exactness the characters of an ancestor,

sometimes after hundreds of generations, have certainly considerable

influence in the variation of individual traits, and in the

differences which distinguish parents from their children.

Their action, added to that of direct heredity, is sufficient to

explain the appearance of certain varieties, without appealing to

_innateness_.

V. But the hereditary force, although it is manifested from one

generation to another, or through several generations, is always

influenced by the _conditions of life_ (_milieu_), and this has

evidently greater force.

This term ought to be taken in a much more general sense than is

usually the case. Buffon himself only took into account climate,

varying quantities of food, and the hardships of servitude, when he

was treating of domestic animals. I understand by the _conditions of

life_ something much more complex. They comprehend the sum of all the

conditions under whose sway a plant, an animal, or man, is formed

and grows as germ, embryo, youth, and adult. To make a selection from

these conditions, to admit some and take them into consideration,

to reject and exclude the rest, is evidently an entirely arbitrary

procedure. The consideration of only a certain period of life, the

neglect of the whole intra-ovarian or intra-uterine period, deserves

the same reproach. From this point of view, the existence of a being

cannot be severed, any more than the _conditions of life_ under whose

rule this existence is accomplished.

A number of cases do away with all doubt as to the action of the

_conditions of life_ upon the germ, or upon the embryo, however

much it may appear to be protected by the envelopes of the ovum, or

by the tissues of the mother. The two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire have

clearly proved that monstrosity dates from the earliest stages of the

formation of the being, and indicates in certain cases the external

causes which have produced it. The experiments of M. Dareste have

confirmed and enlarged in a singular manner these first conclusions,

while giving them greater precision. By mixing madder with the food

of a female mammal, Flourens produced a red colour in the bones of

the fœtus. By placing the eggs of a salmon-trout in waters which only

nourished white-trout, Coste noticed the eggs become gradually paler,

and produce trout which had lost the characteristic colour of their

race. In order to increase the height of our excellent small horses

of the “camargue” race, it is sufficient to give the mare during the

period of gestation a more plentiful diet than that to which she is

accustomed in her half-wild state.

Thus it is established in the clearest manner and by exact

experiments that the conditions of life, when acting upon the embryo

during the intra-uterine or intra-ovarian part of its existence, are

capable of producing either the gravest teratological disorders, or

simple and slight deviations. We are, therefore, clearly justified

in attributing to the same cause modifications which are placed

between these extremes according to their importance. To invoke

_innateness_, in order to explain their appearance, is obviously

superfluous. We shall connect, therefore, with actions of this kind

the appearance of the first spineless Acacia of which we have spoken

before, of the first Ancon sheep in Massachusetts in 1791, that of

the first Mauchamp sheep in France in 1828, etc.

The Ancon and Mauchamp races are only propagated by human industry.

But these sudden deviations from a given type can also extend and

multiply their numbers by themselves. It is well-known that South

American oxen are descended from a horned Spanish race. Now, in 1770,

a hornless ox was produced in Paraguay. In several years, according

to d’Azara, this exceptional form had, as it were, invaded several

provinces. Nevertheless, the race is far from being in favour,

because the absence of horns renders it less liable to be caught by

the lasso, so that its destruction was attempted. It was, therefore,

evidently propagated spontaneously.

Whoever has the smallest acquaintance with embryogenesis will have no

difficulty in understanding that conditions of life act especially

upon organisms in respect to their formation and evolution. However,

their influence upon an animal, even when full-grown, is sometimes

quite as marked. Our sheep, when transferred to America, generally

become acclimatised without undergoing great changes. Their fleece,

particularly, is retained. But in the plains of the Meta it is only

retained on condition of the sheep being regularly shorn. If they are

left to themselves, the wool becomes of a felty nature, is detached

in flakes, and is replaced by a short, stiff, and shining hair. Under

the influence of this burning climate, the same individual becomes in

turn a woolly and a hairy animal. Now, innateness, as Prosper Lucas

conceives it, cannot be appealed to in the case of changes undergone

by a full-grown animal, whilst the action of conditions of life is

here incontestable.

VI. We have just pointed out how heredity and conditions of life can

give rise to a _variety_. Now, the individual which has commenced

to deviate from its original type becomes in its turn a _parent_;

it tends to transmit to its offspring the exceptional characters

which distinguish it. The same facts are repeated in its offspring;

and, at each generation, the actions of the conditions of life are

added to each other. Thus every time heredity transmits the sum of

these actions to the following generation. The faintest modification

increased from father to son sometimes leads to most marked changes.

Our European oxen, in the hot plains of Mariquita and Neyba gradually

lost their hair, at first became _pelones_, and would soon have

formed an entirely naked race, if the _calongos_ had not been

regularly killed. Again, pigs which have become wild in the Paramos

have acquired a kind of wool under the action of a continuous, but

not excessive cold. The Guinea dog and the Esquimaux dog present an

analogous contrast between races of the same species.

In the preceding examples, and in many others which must be omitted,

the actions in question modify organisms in order to place them in

harmony with the conditions of life. Now it is intelligible that when

the maximum of possible effect has once been attained, they can only

fix the result obtained more fully, but can never determine a change

in the opposite direction. The heat, which has by degrees deprived

calongo cattle of their hair, will never restore it again; and the

cold which has made our pigs woolly, will never deprive them of

wool. Here, then, we find _conditions of life_ acting as an agent of

preservation and stability.

VII. In the preceding passage allusion has been made to natural

forces left to themselves. It is to them that the formation is due

of the wild races of all the species whose geographical area is very

extended, such as the fox, jackal, lion, etc.

These races are sometimes so different that they were regarded

as distinct species, as long as the intervening geographical and

zoological terms were unknown. Frederick Cuvier himself made this

mistake in the case of the jackals of India and those of the

Senegal. Wild races have, however, never been so numerous or so

distinct from each other as domesticated races.

Are we to infer from this that man exercises around himself and of

himself a kind of magnetic action, as some authors seem to admit?

Certainly not. In reality, he only acts upon an animal by setting

in action, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, the

two agents which, hitherto, we have met with everywhere, conditions

of life and heredity. By the single fact of domestication, by the

confinement which is almost always the result of it, he changes

entirely the natural conditions of existence. By leading in his

train the animals which he has enslaved, he diversifies still more

the influences which act upon them. Prompt to seize every means of

rendering them most useful, he profits by the smallest modifications

which show the least advantage, pushes them to their utmost limits

and produces the _extreme races_, of which our exhibitions of animal

races give such curious examples.

The chief means which man uses for the attainment of these results,

which at times seem to border on the marvellous, is _selection_. Ever

since he has possessed domestic animals he has marked out among them

individuals which are better adapted than the rest to his intentions.

By some kind of instinct, or _unconsciously_, as Darwin says, he has

chosen them to breed from. By rejecting the types which he considers

inferior, and only employing the higher types wherewith to propagate

the species, he has directed the action of heredity in a definite

direction, and has readily created races. Now, man has acted in this

manner since the times spoken of in Genesis and by Chou-King, that

is, for thousands of years. Is it then surprising that he should

have multiplied around him hereditary forms which are more or less

distinct from the primitive types?

_Progressive selection_ would doubtless lead to numerous and varied

results. Would it allow of the creation of races whose characters

almost reach hemitery? The answer to this question is at least

doubtful. But we have not to ask it. When by one of the actions of

the conditions of life, whose origin remains obscure, an almost

teratological animal form is produced, it soon disappears by the

mixture of blood from different sources, if unions are left to

chance. This is the reason why analogous facts are not observed in

feral races. But if this form appears in a domestic animal, if it

answers to any want or caprice, selection intervenes, preserves it,

and multiplies it. This explains the origin of the Ancon sheep, which

were all descended from a single ram of which we have spoken above;

also the means by which M. Graux de Mauchamp has raised his race of

sheep with silky fleeces from a single ram. These two examples show

how all those peculiar races have been obtained, which in some of

their characters seem to clash with the very type from which they

were derived. In the canine species the beagle corresponds to the

Ancon sheep; the _niata_ cattle, which have appeared in South America

since its conquest, correspond to the bull-dog, etc.

VIII. Races, when once formed under man’s influence, are fixed by the

same causes which produced them. Their characters, which at first

were entirely artificial, become more and more fixed, so much so,

that even a very considerable change in the conditions of existence,

never effaces them entirely. The _acquired nature_ is, so to speak,

welded to the original nature of the being.

This is a fact not generally recognised by naturalists and

anthropologists who have touched upon these questions. For instance,

it has been admitted as proved that domestic races, when they have

returned to the feral state, reassume all the original characters of

the species. This is a mistake. The fact is, that both with animals

and plants, _escaped races_ lose a certain number of characters, and

frequently the most apparent ones, which they owe to domestication;

they reassume others which they had lost during their period of

servitude, but the former are more frequently only diminished and

masked by the latter. If fruit-trees escaped from our orchards,

if our horses, dogs, cattle, and pigs, when they have become wild,

had really reassumed the original type of the species, they ought

to present in every area which they inhabit the marked uniformity

characteristic of animals who were never subject to man. This is not

the case. They ought in particular to preserve no trace of their

acquired characters. Now, the latter are partly persistent. Vans Mons

has found apple-trees and pear-trees of Belgium, in a wild state, in

the forest of the Ardennes. The prickles had reappeared, the fruit

had become small and bitter again, but the principal cultivated

varieties were still to be recognised. I have established an

analogous fact with regard to cling-stone and free-stone peach-trees

in a valley of the Cévennes. Similarly Martin de Moussy has

recognised in the troops of dogs which have become wild in America,

all the chief races from which they had been derived, although they

reassumed the general characters of the tan-coloured type.

IX. From the number of observations which have been collected among

plants and animals, and of which I can only notice a small number,

it is easy to understand the appearance and multiplication of human

races, and to account for certain general facts, some of which

are closely connected with our history. Let us state at starting

that with man, as with animals, _varieties_ have appeared at times

which may be classed among hemitery. Individuals, exhibiting from

their birth exceptional characters, are none the less healthy, and

sometimes have very remarkable power of transmission. Edward Lambert,

born in 1717 of perfectly healthy parents, had all his life a kind

of carapace more than an inch thick, and irregularly fissured, which

gave him the name of _the porcupine man_. All his children, to the

number of six, and his two grandchildren, inherited this strange

modification of the skin, although his wife and his daughter-in-law

did not show the least trace of it. In the Colburn family, four

generations were marked with polydactylism which was derived from the

grandmother of the great calculator. At the fourth generation, four

children out of eight still had supernumerary fingers, though at

each generation normal blood was mixed with the teratological blood.

Evidently, if the descendants of Lambert and Colburn had been treated

like those of the first Ancon or Mauchamp sheep, two human races

would have been obtained, one characterised by a cutaneous carapace,

and the other by the possession of six fingers. But here selection

was wanting, and the exceptional blood, from being diluted at each

fresh marriage, did not fail to be rapidly exhausted.

X. Man does not subject himself to the selection, which he applies

with so much success to animals and plants. In his species,

therefore, the extreme variations which are obtained elsewhere are

not produced. It is thus easily explained why the limits of variation

are not so extensive with man as with domesticated or cultivated

races. But if, for some motive or other, he were to apply the

process of selection to himself, we should not have to wait long for

the result. By marrying the tallest women to the giants of their

guard, Frederick William and Frederick II. had created at Potsdam a

real race distinguished for its tall stature. In Alsace a Duke de

Deux-Ponts, who imitated the Prussian sovereigns, obtained the same

result.

There is another cause which contributes powerfully to restrict the

limits of variation in man, namely, the power which his intelligence

gives him of partly escaping from the effects of the conditions of

life. He is always struggling, as much as he is able, against the

external influences capable of disturbing the equilibrium which

constitutes his well-being. In the tropics, he uses contrivances

for avoiding the heat; in the polar circle, he perfects his means

of heating; if he emigrates, he carries with him, as far as he can,

his manners and customs, and struggles with redoubled care against

the new conditions of life. There is nothing strange in finding

him successful in neutralising to a certain extent the modifying

influences of the external world.

XI. Nevertheless, the conditions of life do not surrender their

rights; although diminished, their action is none the less real.

This is a fact which can be affirmed by what occurs in our great

western colonies. Each great European race is there represented by

derived _sub-races_ which vary according to the locality. The islands

in the Gulf of Mexico, North and South America, and Australia itself,

which has been so recently colonised, have at this time their own

peculiar races, some of which are remarkably characterised.

Since I am unable to treat in detail all these facts of

transmutation, I will only notice some of the facts which have been

established in the United States. We know that the English race was

only definitely settled there at the time of the Puritan emigration,

about 1620, and from the arrival of Penn in 1681. Two centuries

and a half, twelve generations at the most, separate us from this

epoch, and nevertheless, the Anglo-American, the _Yankee_, no longer

resembles his ancestors. The fact is so striking that the eminent

zoologist, Andrew Murray, when endeavouring to account for the

formation of animal races, finds he cannot do better than appeal to

the condition of mankind in the United States.

The subject, moreover, is not wanting in precise details, which are

vouched for by a number of travellers, by naturalists, and doctors.

At the second generation the English Creole in North America,

presents, in his features, an alteration which approximates him to

the native races. Subsequently the skin dries and loses its rosy

colour, the glandular system is reduced to a minimum, the hair

darkens and becomes glossy, the neck becomes slender, and the size of

the head diminishes. In the face, the temporal fossæ are pronounced,

the cheek bones become prominent, the orbital cavities become

hollow, and the lower jaw massive. The bones of the extremities are

elongated, while their cavity is diminished, so much so, that in

France and England gloves are specially made for the United States

with exceptionally long fingers. Lastly, in the woman, the pelvis, in

its proportions, approaches to that of the man.

Are these changes signs of a degeneration already accomplished, and

of an approaching extinction, as Knox asserts? I think a reply to

this assertion is hardly necessary. We are sufficiently acquainted

with American men and women to know that, although modified, the

physical type is not on that account lowered in the scale of races;

and the social grandeur of the United States, the marvels they have

accomplished, the energy with which they pass through the rudest

crises, prove that from every point of view, the Yankee race has

retained its rank. It is simply a new race, formed by the American

conditions of life, but which remains worthy of its elder sisters in

Europe, and will perhaps some day surpass them.

The Negro transported into the same countries has also undergone

remarkable changes. His colour has paled, his features have improved,

and his physiognomy is altered. “In the space of 150 years,” says M.

Elisée Reclus, “they have passed a good fourth of the distance which

separates them from the whites, as far as external appearance goes.”

Lyell’s opinion is almost the same. Moreover, when visiting two Negro

churches, at Savannah, he remarked that the odour so characteristic

of the race was scarcely appreciable. A long medical experience at

New Orleans has shown Dr. Visinié that the blood of the Negro Creole

has lost the excess of plasticity which it possessed in Africa. With

MM. Reiset, de Lisboa, etc., with even Nott and Gliddon, let us

add that, while the physical type has undergone modification, the

intelligence has improved, and we shall have to recognise that in the

United States a _sub-Negro race_ has been formed, derived from the

imported race.

XII. Thus the European White and the African Negro, when under

the influence of new conditions of life, have both undergone

modification. Moreover both, according to M. Reclus, whose statements

are confirmed by those of M. l’Abbé Brasseur de Bonbourg, approximate

to the indigenous races. Both of these authors seem to admit that

at the end of a given time, whatever be their origin, all the

descendants of Whites or of Negroes who have immigrated to America

will become Red-skins.

When two such intelligent observers arrive at an identical and

certainly quite unexpected conclusion on such a question, the facts

must be very patent. Yet they have forced their meaning, from not

having taken sufficient account of the nature of the problem. That

the Negro and the White should replace some of their features and

characters by some of the features and characters belonging to the

indigenous races, is quite natural. When subject to the action of the

conditions of life which have formed the local races, they could not

help being influenced by it to a certain extent. But they will never

on that account be confused with the local races nor with each other,

any more than the White transported to Africa would ever become a

true Negro, or the European descendants of a Negro would ever become

true Whites.

This impossibility of one race being transformed into another is

often brought forward as an objection against Monogenism. It is

nevertheless the natural consequence of the phenomena, of which I

have endeavoured to give a short account, and is easily explained.

Every race is a _resultant_ whose _components_ are, partly the

species itself, partly the sum of the modifying agents which have

produced the deviation from the type. We cannot separate those two

elements, and races which have run wild show us to what extent

the fusion can go. Every race which is fixed, when brought under

the conditions of life which have formed another, will doubtless

approximate to the latter; but it will partly retain its former

impress, as the fruit-trees of Van Mons and the wild dogs of Martin

de Moussy have done.

Such is what would take place even among primary races directly

detached from the primitive type, and which have only been subject

to the action of one fixed condition of life. But with the Negro and

the White, the question is much more complex. These two extreme types

represent the last product of two series of long-continued actions,

whose diversity and multiplicity are indicated by the geographical

stations themselves. Europe and tropical Africa have given them, if

the expression may be used, the _last touches_; but their outline

was _sketched out_ long before they reached their present habitat.

By their transposition, we only submit each of them to a part of the

influences which have formed the other, and consequently a complete

exchange of characters could never take place.

XIII. Without denying absolutely the influence of the conditions

of life upon man, most polygenists refuse to admit that they have

the power of producing new races. To support their statements, they

appeal to the persistence of certain types for a considerable lapse

of time, and insist most strongly upon certain facts derived from

Egypt. On this latter point I readily agree with them. It is quite

true that pictures and Egyptian sculptures point to the existence

in the valley of the Nile of a type, or rather types, which are

remarkably uniform; and whoever has visited these countries has

certainly been struck, as I was, with the great resemblance of the

peoples of the present to those of the past.

But what reasons are there why the inhabitants of the valley of the

Nile should change? What cause, except intercrossing, could determine

any modification in their physical characters? In this region,

which is exceptional in so many respects, nothing has changed since

historic times, neither the earth, the sky, nor the river; habits,

customs, and daily life have remained as they were in the time of the

Pharaohs; the Egyptian even uses implements in our days, which are

exactly like those which were used fifty or sixty centuries ago by

his ancestors.

In Egypt, all the conditions of existence, and, consequently, the

actions of the conditions of life, are the same in our days as they

were in those distant times, the history of which is preserved by the

monuments. Far from tending to modify a race which is already fixed,

they have only helped to fix it more and more. In the order of ideas

which I support, a change in the Egyptian type would be inconceivable.

The persistence of a type, far from being an objection to the manner

in which I understand the conditions of life to act, viz.: the

formation and maintenance of races, is a confirmation of it.

XIV. In conclusion; like all animal and vegetable species, the human

species can vary within certain limits; like plants and animals, man

has his _varieties_ and _races_, which have appeared and been formed

by the action of the same causes.

In the human kingdom, as in the two other organic kingdoms, the first

causes of variation are, _conditions of life_ and _heredity_.

In phenomena of this kind, conditions of life act as the supreme

ruler. If they vary, they become modifying agents, if they remain

constant, agents of stabilisation.

In both cases their result is to harmonise organisms with the

conditions of their existence.

Heredity, which is essentially a preserving agent, becomes an agent

of variation, when it transmits and accumulates the modifying actions

of the conditions of life.

XV. It is now easy to understand, in the general sense, the formation

of human races.

Man at first doubtless peopled his centre of appearance and the

countries immediately adjoining. He then commenced the immense and

varied dispersion which dates from tertiary times and continues to

the present day. He has passed through two geological epochs, and is

now in his third. He has seen the mammoth and rhinoceros flourishing

in Siberia in the midst of a rich fauna; he has at least seen them

driven by the cold into the midst of Europe; and he has assisted

in their extinction. Later on, he has retaken possession of the

_barren-lands_ himself; he has pushed his colonies as far as the

neighbourhood of the pole, perhaps to the very pole itself, while at

the same time he has invaded the forests and deserts of the tropics,

reached the extremity of two great continents, and peopled all the

archipelagoes.

For many thousands of years, man has therefore been subject to the

action of all the external conditions of life with which we are

acquainted, to that of the conditions of life of which we can at the

utmost only form an idea. The various kinds of life to which he has

been subjected, and the different degrees of civilisation at which he

stopped or to which he has reached, have all diversified still more

his conditions of existence. Was it possible that he should retain

everywhere and for all time his original characters?

Experience and observation lead to an entirely opposite conclusion.

When we see the Anglo-Saxon of our days, although protected by all

the resources of an advanced civilisation, subjected to the American

conditions of life, and changed into a Yankee, we must admit that at

each of his great stages, when man is submitted to new conditions

of existence, he has had to harmonise himself with them, and in so

doing undergo modification. Each of these principal stations has

necessarily witnessed the formation of a corresponding race. The

original characters, thus successively affected, have become more

and more altered, by reason of the length of the journey, and the

difference of conditions. When they have reached the end of their

journey the grandchildren of the first emigrants would certainly only

retain very few of the characters of their ancestors.

The original human type has probably presented, for an indefinite

time, its original characters in the tribes which remained fixed to

the centre of appearance for our species. When the glacial epoch

began, which, according to all appearance, made the earliest country

of man uninhabitable, these tribes were forced to emigrate in their

turn. Since that time the earth has no longer had _autochthones_, but

has only been peopled by _colonists_. At the same time the modifying

action of the conditions of life was felt by these last comers, who

themselves were also transformed.

From this moment, the original type of man has been lost; the _human

species_ was only composed of _races_, all of which differed more or

less from the first model.

CHAPTER XXIII.

FORMATION OF MIXED HUMAN RACES.

I. The races which had been developed by the sole action of the

conditions of life and of heredity, did not remain isolated. The

earliest emigrants from the centre of appearance certainly did not

pass at once to the extremity of the area determined by their first

stages. They stopped on the way; they formed secondary centres, round

which fresh emigrations spread. The history of the Lenni Lenapes,

as of the Polynesians, proves that this must have been the case.

Consequently, in many cases, the races first formed must frequently

have come in contact. Then, as the waves of emigration followed

each other, the last comers would meet on their way with those who

preceded them. It will further on be proved that facts of this nature

have occurred since Quaternary times.

Whether peaceful or otherwise, these contacts would result in

reciprocal penetrations, and consequently in _intercrossings_.

The founders of anthropology, Buffon, Blumenbach, and even Prichard,

have taken very little notice of crossings between human races, and

have neglected their importance. It can scarcely be brought as a

serious reproach against them. The two former were unacquainted with

many of the facts which we possess at present. Prichard was neither

a naturalist nor a physiologist. Moreover, nothing forcibly directed

their attention towards crossings which might have occurred in more

or less distant times, or among nations still insufficiently known.

At the present time this indifference is impossible. On the one

hand, the better the various nations are known, the greater becomes

the number of those which derive their origin from intercrossing; on

the other hand, it is impossible not to pay attention to everything

which happens to mankind in consequence of the impulse to expansion

and mixture which takes place on every side. From seeing the

phenomena which occur in the present times, we are naturally led to

investigate those which may have taken place in times past.

II. Are _mixed human races_ formed now? In the presence of the

general facts which I have related in a preceding chapter, this

question might appear strange. Nevertheless, the question has been

asked, and in a more or less formal manner has been answered in the

negative. A few words on the subject are therefore necessary.

We may consider the era of modern crossings as dating from the

discovery of the new world. Nevertheless the mixture of bloods has

only taken place on a large scale at a later period, at the utmost

after the conquest of the Indies in 1515, that of Mexico in 1520,

and that of Peru in 1534. We are not separated from this epoch by

more than three centuries and a half. And yet M. d’Omalius, only

counting the products of the crossing of the European White with the

different coloured races, estimates the number of half-breeds at

eighteen millions. The population of the globe being estimated as

1200 millions, the product of cross-unions is already represented by

about 1/65th.

We know, moreover, how irregular is the distribution of half-breeds.

Immense tracts of country have not been affected. But where the

peoples are in intimate contact, the proportion is much greater. In

Mexico and South America half-breeds constitute at least one-fifth of

the population.

But, say Knox and the other anthropologists who more or less

explicitly adopt his views, the number of half-breeds is entirely

kept up by incessant cross-unions. If abandoned to themselves, and

if they no longer had access to the pure races, they would rapidly

disappear. I will confine myself to quoting a few facts in opposition

to these assertions.

At the Cape, the intercrossing of the Dutch and the Hottentots

has resulted in half-breeds called _Basters_, who soon became

sufficiently numerous to inspire alarm. They were banished beyond

the Orange river. Here they settled under the name of Griquas, and

they increased in numbers rapidly. A portion remained behind in the

colony, and formed villages, among others that of New Platberg. The

Basters intermarried between themselves, and travellers testify to

the fertility of these unions.

Martins has seen the _Cafusos_, the result of the crossing of escaped

Negroes with the Brazilian indigenes. Having retired into the woods,

where they found a refuge, they have formed a separate race there.

Admiral Jurien de la Gravière informs us that at Manilla the

half-breeds of Spaniards, Chinese, and Tagals, are much more numerous

than the original stocks. At Mindanao half-breeds of Spaniards and

Tagals form the majority of the inhabitants. “The fusion of races,”

he adds, “has taken place with marvellous facility in this isolated

corner of the earth.”

The Marquesas Islands, suffering the fate of the other Polynesian

countries, have been depopulated by that mysterious malady which

seems capable of annihilating oceanic populations. M. Jouan informs

us that they are repeopled by half-breeds.

Upon the whole of the littoral zone of South America, according to

M. Martin de Monosy, mixed peoples are prospering and rapidly on the

increase.

We may close this enumeration by a detailed account of a fact which

is well known, and which has all the value of a precise experiment.

In 1789, in consequence of a mutiny, nine English sailors went

and established themselves upon the small island of Pitcairn, in

the Pacific Ocean, accompanied by six Tahitian men and fifteen

Tahitian women. In consequence of the Whites becoming tyrannical,

the war of race began. In 1793 the population was reduced to

four Whites and to ten Tahitian women. Soon war broke out afresh

between the four chiefs of the colony, and Adams only was left.

But marriages had been fruitful; the first half-breeds grew up,

intermarried, and had numerous children. In 1825, Captain Beechey

found sixty-six individuals on Pitcairn Island. Towards the end of

1830 the population numbered eighty-seven. In spite of the deplorable

conditions of the outset, the mixed Pitcairn race had then almost

doubled in twenty-five years, and almost tripled in thirty-three

years. Now England, the most favoured country in Europe in this

respect, only doubles its population in forty-nine years. Thus the

half-breeds of banished English and Polynesians had on Pitcairn

Island about double the number of offspring that pure Anglo-Saxons

have when placed in their customary conditions of life.

Thus the white race, when crossed with races most different in

characters and habit, have given rise to mixed peoples, which have

continued to increase since their appearance. No reason can be given

why this movement of increase should stop or even slacken.

III. There remains the intercrossing of the White and the Negro. It

is with reference to this that some facts have been quoted tending

to prove that half-breeds cannot propagate among themselves. Let us

examine them rapidly.