origin, and have, so to speak, no foreign blood in their veins. I refrain from citing here the so decisive passage which I have already quoted from M. Denis. The comparison between the families of pure white blood, and the mixed, is by no means to the advantage of the former. But I will examine a little more at length this question proposed by my colleague.

To sum up, we see that the intermixture of four distinct races or peoples gave birth, in the province of St. Paul, to a hybrid race, which in physical characteristics was equal or superior to the Creole races that remained unmixed; which governed all the neighbouring races by its warlike energy, in times when war, so to speak, was the normal state; which, changing with the general condition of society, came back to more peaceful occupations, and in peace still preserved its superiority. Does not this fact in itself speak volumes? Does it not show what should take place in a majority, if not in all, the races formed in America by intermixing? Does it not throw a light upon the influence which the social and moral condition, under which a race has its birth, exercises upon the destinies of such race?

It remains for me to say a few words concerning the mulatto, the offspring of the European and the negro. I have already examined this question from various points of view, and I will here lay special emphasis upon the intellectual, moral, and social aspect of the same.

Let me say a single word upon a physical characteristic on which M. Perier has laid considerable stress, namely, the beauty of the women. Long ago we knew, and all travellers have been unanimous on this point, that the mulattoes, quadroons, etc., of our colonies are, in this respect, but little inferior to the more pure-blooded Creoles. From the testimony which I might cite, I will here adduce only that. of M. Taylor, whose observations were made in the little colony of Tristan de Cunha. In this island the fathers were all white, either Englishmen or Hollanders from the Cape, the mothers were all negresses or mulattoes. "All the people born in this island are mulattoes, but very slightly coloured, and of most admirably proportioned stature; almost all of them have more of the European than the negro type. Taken together, the young girls were so thoroughly beautiful, both in face and figure, that I do not recollect ever having seen any more so, and that, notwithstanding the fact that I am familiar with all the sea-shore countries, Bali and its Malays, Havana and its Creoles, Tahiti and its nymphs, the United States and their most celebrated women." The physical beauty of the mixed blood of black and white is certainly not to be disputed. Let us then return to considerations in reality of more importance.

Remember, at the outset, that the white and the black are both

foreigners in America, and that the difficulties of acclimatisation, which are there very severe on both races, must exercise, so to speak, a double action upon the product of their union. Remember also under what conditions these unions are ordinarily made, and do not forget the prejudices against colour, so powerful almost everywhere in the colonies. Would it be strange that a race of people formed under conditions so unfavourable should be inferior, in a marked degree, to the superior of the two races concerned in this formation?

Nevertheless, no one points out this evident inferiority. M. Simonot, who, in this question, generally adopts M. Perier's conclusions, contents himself with saying that the mulattoes "are far from realising, as a rule, a physical or intellectual progress proportioned to the races which gave them birth." In other passages, he acknowledges that "among these mixed races we meet with instances, both male and female, of a remarkable type of beauty, and we find also that their intelligence places them on a level with the most perfect of the white race, but these cases are the exceptions to the rule."

The observations I am now about to quote, relate particularly to the crossing of races on the borders of Africa. M. Rufz, who formed his conclusions from what is taking place at Martinique, tells us "from all these facts we are warranted in concluding that the interbreeding of the white and the black races has exercised a favourable rather than an unfavourable influence upon the resultant race." This last testimony, coming from a physician who has scientifically studied the evidence, and who has passed the greater part of his life in the country of which he writes, is all the more important from the fact that the negroes imported into Martinique, as well as into the other French. colonies, generally come from the coast of Guinea, and are consequently inferior, as we have already seen, at least to certain of the black tribes of Senegal.

This entirely modern appreciation of the question confirms fully the impression which the reading of the evidence relative to the history of the mulatto of St. Domingo has always left upon my mind. There, the men of colour, as we know, multiplied in a remarkable manner. Had they had the same means of instruction, they would have come at once to an equality with the whites, who were degenerated by idleness and their absolute control in government. In the terrible struggles which they have had to maintain against all parties, we see them displaying a courage equal to that of any white race whatsoever. More than decimated by the blacks, under the despotism of Soulouque, and under the force of threats of extermination made to them by the adherents of Vaudoux, they still had a revival of learning. And if this took on a somewhat peculiar form, the fault, in

reality, must be ascribed to their former masters, who had left in the island scarcely any literature beyond the romances of the previous century and a few volumes of political addresses. Notwithstanding all this, the literary men of Hayti have shown, especially in the drama, the germs of a remarkable literary faculty. (D'Alaux.)

In his "Nouveau Voyage aux Iles d'Amérique," Father Labat, after having spoken of the beautiful figure and of the vigour of the mulattoes, and after saying that they are "adroit, industrious, courageous, and hardy beyond imagination," speaks of their high-spiritedness. This trait in their character, which is marked almost everywhere, astonishes M. Perier. But, had the question related to an unmixed race, he would not have so readily expressed his surprise.

The same traveller adds, that they are fickle and devoted to pleasures. But can we not see here an instance of hereditary transmission from the father's side? Finally, he accuses them of being skulkers and vicious. But what else could the mulatto be, placed, as he is, between the blacks, on the one hand, who thoroughly hate him, and the whites, on the other, who, after having given him hope, and transmitted to him sometimes even their noblest aspirations, grind him down with crushing contempt ?

Again, is it not just to ascribe at least a part of these bad qualities to their social condition, and ought we to make the mere crossing of the races responsible for the results inevitably entailed by the local circumstances of birth? The answer to this question is found in Brazil. There the prejudices of colour, far less violent than in other places, have not prevented the mulatto from taking his merited place in society. The old laws, fallen into disuse before the customs of the people, do not arrest him at the threshold of a liberal career, and there is no one who cannot recall instances wherein this result has been reached. Some have reached the very highest places in the administration of government. In addition to the proofs which I have cited elsewhere and to those which are accepted by M. Perier himself, I am able to add confirmatory oral evidence recently received by me.

M. Lagos, among others, has confirmed all that M. de Lisboa had already said relative to the superiority manifested in art by the mulattoes over the two parent races. Almost all the Brazilian painters and musicians belong to this mixed race. Their scientific aptitude also is equally well developed. A large number devote themselves to the study of medicine, (Lagos,) and very many have become celebrated as practitioners.

Observations to the same purport have been received from many other sources. M. Torrès Caicédo, former chargé d'Affaires of Vene

zuela, writes me: "We find the same virtues and the same vices among the whites, the mulattoes, and the Indians." Then he adds a list of mulattoes distinguished by various titles, and among them figure orators, publicists, poets, and a former vice-president of New Grenada, "a distinguished writer and excellent administrator."

In a word, then, and to judge from all that we know of them, we can say of the mulattoes of Brazil and of many other countries besides, what M. Thevenot says of those with whom he was associated, "The mulatto may be all that the white man is. His intelligence is equal to ours." Let us add that he is born thoroughly acclimated to the intertropical regions, and let us bear in mind that a magnificent future awaits this too long down-trodden son of the negro and the white in countries that perchance are the most privileged on the globe.

The Origin of the Present Europeans.—If the crossing of races were in itself a cause of degeneration, as M. de Gobineau thinks, it is difficult to say to what a degree of inferiority European nations would have reached. There are but few places on the globe where nations have been so often intermingled, blended, and juxtaposed as on our soil. Archæology, philology, history, comparative mythology, etc., all strive daily to determine with more precision these ethnical elements, and at various times questions of this nature have been raised in the Anthropological Society. The origin and determination of the limits of the Celtic race have been especially the subject of numerous and profound studies. MM. Broca, Bonté, Lagneau, and Pruner-Bey, have on several occasions summed up the facts already known, and presenting them under their different aspects, have brought out the results of their own special researches. The works of M. Van der Hoeven, on the Fins and Magyars, have furnished M. Pruner-Bey an opportunity of making known his own upon the same subject. MM. Broca and L. Leguay have explored our own soil, and studied from an anatomical and archæological point of view the contents of the ancient tombs, etc. But I cannot enter into detail of these labours, the full appreciation of which would demand frequently a knowledge that I am deficient in, and which, moreover, touches upon special anthropology. I content myself then by merely indicating the general results arrived at.

M. d'Omalius has considered the question of European origins, taken in its totality and also in its numerous ramifications, in one of those short and ingenious epitomes in which our illustrious confrère knows so well how to sum up his learning, which is so vast, and his doubts, which occasionally border upon scepticism. Planting himself upon the broad ground of history and philology, and starting

from the recent discoveries in paleontology, he asks whether in the beginning of the present order of events the human races were not distributed almost as they are in our day; whether the Europeans were really of Asiatic origin; whether the languages with flexions would not have spread sooner from Europe into Asia, than from Asia into Europe; whether the Irish, Welsh, low-Bretons, and Scotch, in place of being derived from Asia, were not more likely descendants of the autochthones of western Europe?

M. d'Omalius has thus revived the argument originally enunciated in France by M. Henrici, and subsequently in England by Latham. These two authors go even to a greater extreme than our learned colleague. The first, admitting, with M. d'Omalius, that events have always followed in the same order, asserts that the west has always overrun the east. Consequently he is led to regard the Sanscrit language as derived from the Celtic; he does not hesitate to look upon all the languages styled neolatines as offshoots of the CeltoLigurian or Gallic tongue, a simple dialect of the old Celtic, which is preserved even to our day under the name of the Provençal dialect; he considers the Latin itself to be directly derived from this mother tongue, which, moreover, had no small influence upon the Greek. It follows, then, that both peoples and languages have migrated from the west toward the east. Latham recognises the fact that history is silent upon the original migrations; but, resorting to the à priori method, he thinks that they ought to have taken place from the larger to the more circumscribed countries, and he concludes that the original seat of the Sanscrit ought to be in the east or southeast of those countries where the Lithuanian is spoken, and that its origin is European.

The opposite opinion, as is well known, is the one maintained by the generality of modern ethnographers. In the Paris Anthropological Society, this view of the question has found many and earnest supporters. And if M. Dally has brought up again the doubts expressed by M. d'Omalius, M. Chavée, on the part of philology; Lagneau and Bonté of history; Bertrand of archæology; Liétard of history, philology, and mythology; and Pruner-Bey, in almost every point of view, have corroborated by new proofs the generally accepted opinions. When we look at the imposing army of proofs, drawn from all these so different sources, and all pointing to one and the same conclusion, we can no longer doubt, it seems to me, the reality of this great fact, namely, that the modern European nations are children of Asia, and sisters of the races which have peopled India and Persia. An elder sister of all these races-an evidence of the primitive Aryans still exists in the higher mountains of Bolor and Hindookoh.