THE HALF-BEEBD. 21 



the powers that constituted the Cougo Free State will prove a more successful civilizer 

 than the Arab's mission remains to be seen. If it fails to blanch the negro's skin, it may, 

 and it is to be hoped that it will, liberate his mind from superstition and prejudice by its 

 higher teaching and example. 



It will thus be seen that the half-breed has played a most important part in the 

 advance of mankind to the stage of progress which it has reached to-day. In his great work 

 on anthropology, Dr. Topinard maintains that there is not a single pure race on the globe 

 at the present time, every group having been crossed and mixed over and over again. It 

 has been seen that this process is still going on, and more actively now than ever before. 

 Improved means of communication such as even a century ago had hardly been dreamed 

 of, have brought and are constantly bringing the most widely severed and diverse com- 

 munities into intercourse with each other. The movement of men to and fro over the face 

 of the earth never ceases. Business and pleasure, war and philanthropy, science and trade, 

 are each, with its own aim and by its own methods, penetrating day after day the obscure 

 places of the globe. And every fresh discovery of human habitation gives rise, sooner or 

 later, to some new phase of inter-crossing. Individual men move along the paths of their 

 destinies, not knowing the goal that awaits them. And tribes and nations are still 

 blinder as to the future than individuals. Unconsciously in the past, impelled by hunger, 

 or ambition, or tribal wrath, or religious enthusiasm, or love of adventure, they laid the 

 foundations of the races that wea-e to be. And, under changed conditions, and with differ- 

 ent motives, but alike unthoughtful of results, contemporary humanity, with its thousands 

 of conflicting passions and aspirations, is engaged in the metamorphosis, by interfusion, 

 of its own form and features and character. The change is imperceptible. The half-breed 

 comes and disappears, and with him nations of men seem to pass out of existence. But 

 they have merely been absorbed and by absorption helped to transform others. Now and 

 then, the transition takes place on a scale so comprehensive or in circumstances so peculiar 

 as to compel attention and even to excite alarm. It is only then, perhaps, that the fact and 

 its significance are brought home to our minds. But in some form the half-breed question 

 is never far from ns. Now, as ever, though it may seem to be localized and isolated from 

 the general concerns of civilization, it is in reality, directly or indirectly, co-existent with 

 the interests of the human race. We meet it at every turn, on every continent, on every 

 sea. And, more and more every day, is it complicated by new issues that must be faced. 

 Every phase of immigration or intrusion of an inferior race among the communities of a 

 superior one, or the reverse ; every attempt at colonial expansion ; every frontier difficulty, 

 where civilized nations have undertaken to direct the destinies of uncivilized or half- 

 civilized clans ; slavery and its suppression ; the coolie trade, and other outcomes of the 

 labour question ; wars of conquest, exploration, or commerce, in savage regions ; the estab- 

 lishment of ports of call and coaling stations at points midway in great oceans or on coasts 

 remote from ordinary traffic ; the fur trade ; the hunting of larger game ; geological and 

 topographical surveys, and scientihc expeditions by sea and land ; and last but not least, 

 the bearing of the message of peace and salvation to the moral wastes of the earth — all 

 these forms of human endeavour, policy, ambition, curiosity, or zeal, will be found to touch 

 at some point or other on the problem of the half-breed. 



