ACCLIMATIZuiTION. 789 



their countrymen already quoted.* The English writers of this 

 opinion include Ravenstein,f Sir William Moore, J and Tilt.* Dr. 

 Felkin alone holds to a slightly more favorable view of coloniza- 

 tion in Africa, although he qualifies it by requiring an unlimited 

 amount of time ; and he finds comfort in the thought that Cen- 

 tral Africa is no worse than India. He finally concedes, how- 

 ever, that in this latter colony the hill districts are the only ones 

 where the English can remain in health. | For some years the 

 hopes for Africa as a field for colonization were based upon the 

 altitude of the inland plateau. But expert opinion on this seems 

 to show that, with the sole exception of Matabeleland, the coun- 

 try is impossible for European colonists."^ And even Mr. Stanley 

 declares that cautious pioneering is all that can be expected for 

 the future in the Congo basin that colonization was never antici- 

 pated at all. ^ In the face of such testimony there can be but one 

 conclusion : to urge the emigration of women, children, or of any 

 save those in the most robust health to the tropics may not be 

 to murder in the first degree, but it should be classed, to put it 

 mildly, as incitement to it. 



It must not be understood that by this is meant that the 

 white man can not live in the tropics. Hygienic precautions 

 and great care can often render a prolonged sojourn in these 

 regions perfectly harmless. But, as Mr. Wallace observes, the 

 Englishman who can spend a summer in Rome in safety only by 

 sleeping in a tower and by never venturing forth at night, can 

 not be truly said to be acclimated. A colony can never approxi- 

 mate even to the civilization of Europe until it can abolish or 

 assimilate the native servile population ; and yet, one of the 

 many things which are expressly forbidden to all colonists in the 

 tropics is agricultural labor. It would be a waste of energy to 

 give citations to prove this, for every work on acclimatization 

 insists upon the necessity of this precaution. Let it be under- 

 stood, then, that a colonial policy in the tropics means a perma- ' 



* Dr. Van der Burg in Transactions of the Seventh International Congress of Demog- 

 raphy and Hygiene, p. 170. After all precautions have been taken, " such a settlement 

 ought to be continually supported by new supplies from the European continent for many, 

 possibly for hundreds of years, in order to have a chance of healthy existence." 



f Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, January, 1891, p. 31, and Proceeding 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1894. 



\ Edinburgh Medical Journal, xxxi, part ii, p. 852. * 



* Transactions of the Seventh International Congress of Demography and Hygiene. 



II Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1886, p. 729. 



^ Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, January, 1891, p. 31, and Transac- 

 tions of the Seventh International Congress of Demography and Hygiene, p. 1Y8. 



() Proceedings of the International Geographical Congress, London, 1895. Since this 

 was written new and important evidence to the same end is given in the Scottish Geographi- 

 cal Magazine, xi, p. 512. 



