54 INTERMIXTURE OP CERTAIN RACES 



miles from Sydney the natives sacrifice all young Mulattoes. 

 This supposition is rather hazardous, specially as the traveller 

 whom he quotes merely says that these Mulattoes do not ap- 

 pear to be capable of development. 1 



We conclude from this perhaps too lengthy discussion, that 

 the murder of the Australian Mulattoes is a vulgar tale. Ad- 

 mitting that such crimes occur occasionally, or even that they 

 are frequent, there should even then be many Mulattoes in 

 Australia provided the intermixture be very prolific. We can 

 in the above strange explanation only find a confirmation, and 

 a very strong one too, of the fact we have established, namely, 

 that the cross-breeds are rare in Australia. If this fact had 

 not been perfectly evident, there would not have been any oc- 

 casion to explain it, and Mr. Cunningham, who has made such 

 strenuous efforts to reinstate the natives, would not have 

 charged them with such a terrible accusation. 



We have not exhausted the list of hypotheses advanced, to 

 explain the nearly constant sterility attending the intercourse 

 between Australians and Tasmanians and the English. It has 

 also been said that for the most part the intercourse between 

 the two races was accidental, momentary, and that consequently 

 the native woman has a much greater chance to become preg- 

 nant by her savage husband than by her European lovers, and 

 that the rarity of Australian Mulattoes had no other cause. 

 M. de Freycinet seems to have accepted this explanation. 

 " No permanent alliances are formed between the two peoples, 

 though we find here and there some Mulattoes ; but these are 

 merely the result of some transitory connections of Europeans 

 with Australian women." 2 



We would first observe that the number of mongrels is in 

 many countries much more considerable, if the intermixture is 

 effected in the same manner as is notably the case in South 

 Africa. There are cross-breeds in several of the Polynesian 

 Islands, where the Europeans have never permanently settled, 

 but only appeared temporarily. There should, therefore, be a 



1 MacGillivray, foe. cit., vol. i, p. 151 , Wuitz, loc. cit., p. 203. 

 - Tliis passage, extracted from the Voyage do I'Uranie, is textually repro- 

 duced in the Zooloyic of M. Jacquinot, t. ii, p. 353. 



