144 nEPORT — 18G1. 



island till eight or ten years of age, when anxiety begins to be excited by the 

 attenuation of the frame and the apparent absence of strength in proportion 

 to development. These symptoms, liie result of relaxed tone and defective 

 nutrition, are to be remedied by change of climate, either to the more lofty 

 ranges of the mountains or more providently to Europe." 



Many writers, who contend that Europeans can become completely ac- 

 climatized, contradict themselves in their statements respecting the rearing of 

 children. Mr. Robert Clarke, who has some eighteen years' experience on the 

 Gold Coast and at Sierra Leone, goes so far as to say*, " It is questionable 

 whether persons of colour are better able to bear up against the influence 

 of climate than persons of pure European blood, provided the latter are 

 sober in their habits. There can be no doubt that Europeans, on their first 

 arrival in West Africa, are in greater danger of losing their lives than the 

 former; but when once they have become acclimatized, they seem generally 

 to withstand tiie influence of the climate better than coloured people, 

 provided, I repeat, they are temperate in their habits." If this be so, we 

 should not expect to find great mortality amongst children born of " tempe- 

 rate, acclimated Europeans." But Mr. Clarke saysf, "Great difficulty is 

 experienced in rearing European children. They in general thrive admi- 

 rably until teething begins. It is at this epoch they are frequently harassed 

 with intermittent iever, which by repeated occurrence causes enlargement 

 of the spleen and functional disturbance of the stomach and bowels, when 

 they soon became cachectic, and unless removed to a more genial climate 

 drop into an early grave." 



Some authors think that the question of the European propagating himself 

 in the tropics has been settled by the fact that for three centuries the Spanish 

 race has lived and thrived in tropical America. Mr. Crawfurd says, "The 

 question whetiier the European race is capable of living and multiplying in 

 a tropical or other hot region seems to have been settled in the affirmative 

 on a large scale in America. Of the pure Spanish race there are at present 

 probably not fewer than six millions, mostly within the tropics." But it is 

 a wholly gratuitous assumption, unsupported by facts, to suppose that any- 

 thing like this number of the Spanish race exist in America. If we were to 

 read for Mr. Crawfurd's "millions" the word " thousands," we should per- 

 haps be nearer the truth. In Mexico it is estimated that there are not more 

 than ten thousand of the pure racej, reckoning both Creoles and immigrants. 

 What a small proportion is this to those who left their native land and have 

 never returned again! For three hundred years Spain has poured out her 

 richest blood on her American colonies, almost at the price of her own 

 extinction, without the slightest prospect of being able to establish a Spanish 

 race in Central America. Never was there a greater failure than the attempt 

 of the Spaniards to colonize tropical America. Those who have watched 

 the gradual change of the Spanish colonies must be convinced of the fallacy 

 of quoting this as a case of successful colonization of tropical countries by 

 Europeans. When the continual influx of new blood from Sjjain was taking 

 place, the change was not so much observed ; but, now emigration has ceased, 

 the pure Spanish race is diminishing rapidly. All recent observations show 

 that the Indian blood is again showing out in a most remarkable maimer. In- 

 stead of the Spaniards flourishing, there seems every prospect of their entire 



* Reports of II. M. Colonial Possessions for 1858, Part ii. p. 33. 



f Topography and Diseases of the Gold Coast, ISGl, p. 48. 



J It has since been asserted in the Cortes, by Don Pachero, that the pure Spanish race in 

 Mexico does not amount to more than eight thousand. In 1793, Humboldt estimated the 

 pure Spanish race in New Spaia to consist of 1,200,000. 



