298 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
their mixtures are compared. White and negro produce 
mulattoes, white and Indian produce mamelucos, negro and 
Indian produce cafuzos, and these three kinds of half- 
breeds are not connecting links between the pure races, 
but stand exactly in that relation to them in which all 
hybrids stand to their parents. The mameluco is as truly 
a half-breed between white and Indian, the cafuzo as truly 
a half-breed between negro and Indian, as is the mulatto, 
commonly so called, a half-breed between white and negro. 
They all share equally the peculiarities of both parents, 
and though more fertile than half-breeds in other families 
of the animal kingdom, there is in all a constant ten- 
dency to revert to the primary types in a country where 
three distinct races are constantly commingling, for they 
mix much more readily with the original stocks than with 
each other.* Children between mameluco and mameluco, 
or between cafuzo and cafuzo, or between mulatto and 
mulatto, are seldom met with where the pure races occur ; 
while offspring of mulattoes with whites, Indians and ne- 
groes, or of mamelucos with whites, Indians, and negroes, 
or of cafuzos with whites, Indians, and negroes, form the 
bulk of these mixed populations. The natural result 
of an uninterrupted contact of half-breeds with one an- 
other is a class of men in which pure type fades away 
as completely as do all the good qualities, physical and 
moral, of the primitive races, engendering a mongrel 
crowd as repulsive as the mongrel dogs, which are apt 
to be their companions, and among which it is impossible 
to pick out a single specimen retaining the intelligence, 
the nobility, or the affectionateness of nature which makes 
* For some remarks concerning the structural peculiarities of the Indians 
and Negroes, see Appendix No. V. 
