ON ETHNO-CLIMATOLOGY. 14? 



But perhaps the negroes offer the strongest proof of the fallacy of saying 

 that all races of men are cosmopolitan. We have ample and positive evidence 

 that they cannot perpetuate themselves beyond about the fortieth degree of 

 north or south latitude. Indeed, in their own region the ascent of a high 

 mountain will kill them, sometimes nearly instantly. Thus, out of the eight 

 Africans who ascended with Beecroft the Saint Isabel Mountain*, at Fer- 

 nando Po, no less than five died. 



The negro seems to thrive in the southern states of America ; but it is 

 far from probable that he is suited to all tropical countries. Sir A. Tulloch 

 and Dr. Bennett Dowler coincide in opinion that the negro will die out in 

 the West Indies and the Mauritius. At Cuba, Mr. Tylor sajsf, " there are 

 fifteen thousand slaves imported annually;" he also adds, "that the Creoles 

 of the country are a poor degenerate race, and die out in the fourth genera* 

 tion." The race is only kept up in Egypt and Algiers by constant immigra- 

 tion. 



In the Mauritius, the deaths in five years exceeded the births by upwards 

 of six thousand, in a population of sixty thousand. 



Dr. Boudin says, " In Ceylon, in ISil, there was not a trace of the nine 

 thousand negroes imported by the Dutch government before the English 

 domination. Of the five thousand negroes imported by the English since 

 1803, there remained only, in IS^l, about two hundred to three hundred, 

 although females were imported to preserve them." 



Of the 4th West Indian Regiment placed, in 1819, in garrison at Gibraltar, 

 nearly all perished of pulmonary disease in fifteen months. 



The statistics of the mortality of negroes in the different States have clearly 

 shown the influence of climate. The farther they go north, the higher be- 

 comes the rate of mortality ; they seem to die of consumption, just like the 

 monkeys and lions in the Zoological Gardens. 



It is difficult to determine the exact amount of influence exerted by race 

 in resisting particular diseases. It has, however, been shown that the negro 

 race on the West Coast of Africa, especially, is exempted from yellow fever, 

 and that a very small portion of African blood is sufficient to resist the 

 influence of this disease. 



All the dark races seem less liable to yellow fever than the white man. 

 Both the Red Indian and the Southern European are more exempt than 

 the Englishman. 



Mr. Clarke;]; says, that when the yellow fever broke out at Sierra Leone 

 in 1837-8-9, 1847, and 1859, he never knew of a single negro or even of 

 a man of mixed blood being attacked. He also says, that in 1837 and 1839 

 small-pox broke out among the negroes, and disappeared at the same times 

 as the yellow fever appeared. With the plague the dark races are aflTected 

 far more than the white, being the reverse of the law with the yellow fever. 

 Dr. Nott contends that the predisposition to yellow fever is just in proportion 

 to the lightness of the skin ; and that with plague the reverse is the case. 



The Jewish race, and not the Chinese race, are, however, nearest to being 

 cosmopolitan. It is asserted that they live and thrive all over the. world. If, 

 however, we come to examine the evidence of this fact, we find that many 

 of the people reputed to be Jews have no claim whatever to that question- 

 able honour ; such, for instance, as the many reputed cases of black Jews. 



Dr. Boudin, although an advocate for the non-cosmopolitan powers of 



* The greatest height at which this mountain was ever estimated was that by Consul 

 Hutchinson, who thought it was twelve thousand feet, 

 t Loc. cit. p, 12, 

 t Remarks on the Topography and Diseases of the Gold Coast, p. 28. 



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