132 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



tinique. 1 In consequence of the enormous mortality among 

 the recruits who descend to the coast from the Mexican plateau 

 (on one occasion there died 272 out of 300 in three months) 

 it was resolved to employ acclimatized Negroes and men of 

 colour for the garrison of St. Juan d'Ulloa. 2 A. de St. Hilaire 3 

 also observes that the blacks and men of colour supported the 

 climate of Villa Boa much better than the whites. Pruner 

 again (p. 68) assumes it as a fact, that the white race cannot 

 perpetuate itself in the greater part of Negro regions. With- 

 out slaves, says Koler, 4 the fertile tropical valleys would be 

 unproductive and deserted, as white men cannot labour there 

 in the open air. Further proofs may be found in Nott and 

 G-liddon, 5 who deny the capacity of the white to become 

 acclimated in all Malaria regions, as well as that of the Negro 

 in the West Indies. Dowding 6 calls attention to the fact, that 

 in the whole of the West Indies the whites constitute at 

 present but five per cent, of the population, and consequently 

 the blacks and men of colour will in a short time be the sole 

 occupants of these islands. We cannot, however, admit that 

 incapacity for acclimatization under the tropics is peculiar to 

 the white race, since individuals of any race seem inviable in 

 regions in which they are not acclimatized, even in those parts 

 from which they originally sprung. 



Though the injurious influences of tropical climates affect 

 the Negro less (and as it seems in a different manner) than the 

 European, he is nevertheless not less exposed to injury than the 

 white on suddenly changing his climate. Wilson, 7 who, from 

 a twenty years residence on the Gaboon and in C. Palmas, has 

 arrived at the conviction that the noxiousness of the climate of 

 these regions had been exaggerated, states, that coloured peo- 

 ple coming from the United States suffer as much from the 

 climate as the whites, though the former accommodate them- 



1 Peron, " Voy. de decouv. aux terres Aust.," ii, p. 427, 1824. 



2 Humboldt, " Neu-Spanien," iv, p. 408. 



Voy. au sources du E. S. Francisco/' ii, p. 71, 1847. 

 ' Notizen iiber Bonny," p. 156, 1848. 



Indigenous races of the earth," p. 357. 



: Religious Partizanship, Africa in the West," Oxf. 1854. 

 Western Afr.," p. 511, 1856. 



