Cli. IX.] DEGENERATION OF THE INDIANS. 171 



cacao, and many fruits ; they still make the earthenware 

 dishes of the country, though far inferior to those of their 

 ancestors ; but they have lost their tribal instinct ; they 

 do not support each other ; they acknowledge no chiefs ; 

 each one is absorbed in his own affairs, and they are only 

 a little less slothful than the half-breeds. "Will these 

 Indians ever again attain to that pitch of civilisation at 

 which they had arrived before the conquest ? I fear not. 

 The whip that kept them to the mark in the old days 

 was the continual warfare between the different tribes, 

 and this has ceased for ever. War is not always a curse. 

 " There is some soul of goodness in things evil." Before 

 the Spanish conquest no small isolated communities could 

 exist. Those in which the tribal instinct was stronger, 

 who stood shoulder to shoulder with their fellows, 

 reverenced and obeyed their chiefs, and excelled in feats 

 of strength and agility, would annihilate the weaker and 

 less warlike races. It was this constant struggle between 

 the different tribes that weeded out the weak and indo- 

 lent, and preserved the strong and enterprising ; just as 

 amongst many of the lower animals the stronger kill 

 off the weaker, and the result is the improvement of 

 the race, or at any rate the maintenance of the 

 point of excellence at which it had arrived in former 

 times. 



Since the Spanish conquest there has been no such pro- 

 cess of selection in operation amongst the Indians. The 

 most indolent can obtain enough food, whilst the climate 

 makes clothing almost a superfluity. The idle and 

 improvident live their natural terms of years, and 

 increase their kind even faster than the provident and 

 industrious. The tribal feeling is destroyed ; the selfish 



