Distribution of Tropical Diseases in Africa. 417 
they will remain, morally and physically, as they previously 
existed in their original habitat. True, some wiser writers 
do recognise the patent fact that Europeans and individuals 
from the Northern States of America cannot compete with 
the coloured races in the Tropics. They allow that the 
supremacy of the whites in the Tropics is artificial, wherever 
it may obtain. There the white races only keep en 
evidence practically by constantly reinforcing their ranks 
through importation. Even if we examine into the con- 
dition which obtains in Barbadoes, where the British have 
their oldest and, possibly, their most healthy tropical 
possession, we find that a cycle of constant fresh importation 
has been going on to keep up the stock. It is true that 
“mean whites” may indeed be found there, but they are 
the degenerate representatives of the race. In the Southern 
States of America, good authorities tell us that the Negroes 
are, owing to their better adaptation to the climate, gradually, 
but surely, replacing the whites. Looking for a moment to 
New Zealand, which is, of course, not a tropical country, we 
find that, notwithstanding the fact that the population is 
constantly receiving fresh British blood, it differs in a 
marked degree from the parent stem, owing to the appar- 
ently inscrutable action of climate upon human beings. It 
is evident, even to superficial observers, that the New 
Zealanders are mentally different from the original stock, 
and there is, doubtless, also some amount of physical alter- 
ation which, were sufficient attention paid to the subject, 
would be found to be important. 
It would be interesting, did opportunity allow, to indicate, 
with some attempt at detail, the causes which lead to these 
marked changes, which are noticeable in emigrants and 
their descendants, but one remark must suffice; the hard 
winters in the north render the people industrious, provident, 
and capable of great endurance, or in such a country as 
New Zealand life is less gloomy and anxious, and the people 
are more lively—brighter—in fact more mobile. When, how- 
ever, the climate, like that of Africa, is enervating, emigrants 
from the north become lazy, indolent, to some extent emas- 
culated. National character is, on the whole, undoubtedly. 
