THE INTERMINGLING OF RACES. 349 



the truth were known, it would, perhaps, surprise the sticklers for 

 Caucasian exclusiveness. Travelers are constantly meeting with Eu- 

 ropeans of almost every nation in out-of-the-way corners of the world, 

 where they have made themselves homes and taken them wives of the 

 daughters of the land. When in 1836 the late Charles Darwin and 

 Captain (afterward Vice-Admiral) Fitz-Roy visited the Cocos-Keeling 

 group in the Indian Ocean, they were surprised to find that Mr. J. C. 

 Ross, with a familia of Orientals, had taken up his ahode in those 

 lonely islets. Yet Mr. Ross himself had been no less surprised to dis- 

 cover that another adventurer, Mr. Alexander Hare, had anticipated 

 him. When Mr. II. O. Forbes visited the islands in 1878, he found 

 Mr. Ross's grandson still in possession and quite happy in his self- 

 imposed exile from civilization. The inhabitants on the last occasion 

 were found to be nearly all of mixed blood, the proprietor himself 

 having married a Cocos-born wife.* 



If it would not tend to prolong this essay indefinitely, many more 

 instances might be recorded. There is hardly a portion of the East 

 in which abundant evidence is not obtainable of the mixture of race 

 already accomplished or now going on. The Malay Peninsula, Bur- 

 mah, Siam, Cochin-China, Hong-Kong, the seaport cities of China and 

 Japan, besides the countries already mentioned or alluded to, furnish 

 testimony to the fact enough to satisfy all who seek information on 

 the subject. The following picture of the racial variety to be met 

 with in an Eastern city shows, at least, what opportunities exist for 

 intermixture : " The city is all ablaze with color. I can hardly recall 

 the pallid race which lives in our dim, pale islands, and is costumed in 

 our hideous clothes. Every costume from Arabia to China floats 

 through the streets : robes of silk, satin, broadcloth, and muslin ; and 

 Parsees in spotless white, Jews and Arabs in dark, rich colors — Klings 

 (natives of Southern India) in crimson and white, Bombay merchants 

 in turbans of large size— and crimson cummerbunds. Malays in red 

 sarongs, Sikhs in pure white, their great height rendered almost colos- 

 sal by the classic arrangement of their draperies, and Chinamen from 

 the coolie, in his blue or brown cotton, to the wealthy merchant in his 

 frothy silk crepe and rich, brocaded silk — made up a medley irresisti- 

 bly fascinating to the stranger." f Such is Singapore, and not far off 

 is Malacca, one of the oldest European towns in the East, originally 

 Portuguese, then Dutch, and now, though nominally under English 

 rule, practically a Chinese colony. Not less striking is Mr. Forbes's 

 sketch of a street-scene in the capital of Portuguese Timor : " Tall, 

 erect indigenes mingle with negroes from the Portuguese possession 

 of Mozambique and the coasts of Africa, most of them here in the 

 capacity of soldiers or condemned criminals ; tall, lithe East Indians 

 from Goa and its neighborhood ; Chinese and Bugis of Macassar, with 



* " A Naturalist's Wanderings," etc., pp. 13-20. 

 f Isabella Bird, in the " Leisure Hour." 



