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. 



