8 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [ch. i 



the interior where ordinary white settlers cannot Hve, in 

 which it would be wise to settle immigrants from India ; 

 and there are many positions in other regions which it 

 is to the advantage of everybody that the Indians 

 should hold, because there is as yet no sign that sufficient 

 numbers of white men are willing to hold them, while 

 the native blacks, although many of them do fairly well 

 in unskilled labour, are not yet competent to do the 

 higher tasks which now fall to the share of the Goanese, 

 and Moslem and non- Moslem Indians. The small 

 merchants who deal with the natives, for instance, and 

 most of the minor railroad officials, belong to these 

 latter classes. I was amused, by the way, at one bit 

 of native nomenclature in connection with the Goanese. 

 Many of the Goanese are now as dark as most of the 

 other Indians ; but they are descended in the male line 

 from the early Portuguese adventurers and conquerors, 

 who were the first white men ever seen by the natives 

 of this coast. Accordingly, to this day some of the 

 natives speak even of the dark-skinned descendants of 

 the subjects of King Henry the Navigator as " the 

 whites," designating the Europeans specifically as 

 English, Germans, or the like ; just as in out-of-the- 

 way nooks in the far North- West one of our own red 

 men will occasionally be found who still speaks of 

 Americans and Englishmen as " Boston men " and 

 " King George's men." 



One of the Government farms was being run by an 

 educated coloured man from Jamaica, and we were 

 shown much courtesy by a coloured man from our own 

 country who was practising as a doctor. No one could 

 fail to be impressed with the immense advance these 

 men represented as compared with the native negro ; 

 and, indeed, to an American, who must necessarily 



