4:66 The Andes and the Amazons. 



always predominating ; the aboriginal seems to be merged 

 into the Spanish in two generations. " The few eases I 

 saw " (says Dr. Gait) " of the alliance of the Teuton and 

 the Indian were nondescripts as to race-type, being some- 

 what Chinese, or like those bilious, whortle - berried off- 

 shoots to be encountered in the miserable malarial regions 

 of our low-coast country. In fact, there is a good deal of 

 the 'heathen Chinee' in most of the half-breeds of the 

 Montana ; and sometimes it is difhcult, when the child is 

 of tender age, say two years, to tell whether it be a Cholo 

 or Celestial." The mixture of the white and red races 

 begets a sprightly people (called Mamelucos in Brazil, and 

 Cholos in Peru), though one not so able to resist causes of 

 disease as either of the parental types.* It is rather un- 

 stable in character, presenting a blending of Spanish 

 haughtiness with Indian suspiciousness, and little tenacity 

 for any thing but their own prejudices. 



It is a curious fact, observed by Wallace,t that every 

 where in the East where the Portuguese have mixed with 

 the native races, they have become darker in color than 

 either of the parent stocks. The i-everse is the case in 

 South America, where the mixture of the Portuguese or 

 Brazilian with Indian produces the Mameluco, who is not 

 unfrequently lighter than either parent, and always lighter 

 than the Indian. Mr. Darwin's theory of coloration by 

 natural selection is hardly borne out on the Maranon. 

 " It was a notorious fact, in my wanderings in the Mon- 

 tana " (writes Dr. Gait), " that the Indian was more liable 

 to miasmatic poison than the lighter races, not only from 

 exposure, but from a more susceptible system ; and al- 



* Keller, however, remarks (p. 131) that "no one will assert that the 

 black -haired, dark- eyed mestizoes of these countries (Pernambuco, Para, 

 etc.) are less fit to live and work under the glowing rays of the tropical sun 

 than the fair sons of the North." 



t Malay Archipelago, p. 341. 



