254 VARIETIES OF COLOUR 



former has nothing of the grandmother's woolly curl: the 

 skhi has a slight brown tint, and the cheeks are red. In the 

 Dutch colonies they often have blue eyes and fair hair. The 

 stain of the black blood is principally visible in the organs 

 of generation ; the scrotum is blackish in the male, and the 

 la])ia pudendi dark or purplish in tlie female. 



In political rights these class with the Mulattocs in the 

 European colijnies. 



Europeans and Tercerons produce Quarterons or Qua- 

 droons (ochavones, octavones, or alvinos), which are not to 

 be distinguished frum whites : but they are not entitled, in 

 Jamaica at least, to the same legal privileges as the Euro- 

 peans or white Creoles, because there is still a contamination 

 of dark blo^d, although no longer visible. It is said to be- 

 tray itself sometimes in a relic of the peculiar strong smell 

 of the great-grandmother. 



The genealogy of these hy1)rid races is carried into the 

 fifth generation, the chiklren of Europeans and Quarterons 

 being called Quinterons * (puchuelas Spar.). It is not cre- 

 dible that any trace of mixed origin can remain in this case, 

 according to the observations of the most judicious eye-wit- 

 nesses concerning the third generation, viz. that in colour 

 and habit of body they cannot be distinguished from their 

 European progenitors. Accordingly, even the law is now 

 satisfied, and considers them sufficiently whitened to enjoy 

 its full protecti' m : they are legally white, and free. 



By an opp<^site course of proceeding the Mulatto offspring 

 of the European and Negro may be reduced again to the 

 characters of tlie latter. If the Mulatto be paired with a 

 Negro, and the cliildren again and again with Negroes, the 

 fourth generation is perfectly black. 



Thus, in obedience to that principle by which the pro- 

 perties of the offspring depend on those of the parents, we 

 have the power of changing one species into another by re- 



* The offspring of a Quadroon woman and white man is called Mestize, or 

 Mustee, according to Edwards, Hist, of the West Indies; ii. IS : and Wm- 

 TERBOTTOM, ^ccounf of tJic Native Jfricans ; i. 188. 



