184 Scientific Intelligence — Anthropology, 



vancement of the state, full of danger to the prosperity of the 

 individual citizens, and perhaps the ground of the extinction of 

 entire nations. The fate which must, sooner or later, befall 

 the greater part of tropical America which is filled with negro 

 slaves, which will deluge the fairest provinces of Brazil with 

 blood, and convert them into a desert, where the civilised white 

 men will never again be able to establish himself, may not indeed 

 afflict Peru and Columbia to the same extent ; but these coun- 

 tries will always suffer from the evils resulting from the presence 

 of an alien race. If such a country as the United States feels it- 

 self checked and impeded by its proportionably less predomi- 

 nant black population ; and if there, where the wisdom and power 

 of the government are supported by public spirit, remedial mea- 

 sures are sought in vain ; how much greater must be the evil in 

 countries like Peru, where the supine character of the whites 

 favours incessant revolutions, where the temporary rulers are not 

 distinguished either for prudence or real patriotism, and the in- 

 finitely rude Negro possesses only brutal strength, which makes 

 him doubly dangerous in such countries, where morality is at 

 so low an ebb. He and his half descendant, the mulatto, joined 

 the white Peruvian, to expel the Spaniards, but would soon turn 

 against their former allies, were they not at present kept back by 

 want of moral energy and education. But the Negro and the 

 man of colour, far more energetic than the white Creole, will in 

 time acquire knowledge, and a way of thinking that will place 

 them on a level with the whites, who do not advance in the samie 

 proportion so as to maintain their superiority.*" When we con- 

 sider all these circumstances, when we see Buenos Ayres even 

 now harassed by perpetual wars with the Indians, when we think 

 of the frightful crimes that have already taken place at Para, we 

 cannot but anticipate the consequences that must ensue if the 

 Negroes should rise in a general insurrection, and be joined by 

 the native Indians. We wonder at the blind infatuation of the 

 Brazilians, who, in defiance of their own laws, still import 100,000 

 new slaves every year from Africa, and we feel our minds de- 

 pressed by the melancholy persuasion, that the future fate of 

 these fine countries will prove even more tremendous than the 

 awful denunciation which threatens to visit the sins of the fathers 

 upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation. 

 13. Historical and Statistical Researches on the Causes of the 



