SECT. II.] UNCULTIVATED WHITE RACES. 313 



adopted by Indian tribes. 1 Froebel 3 says that in Mexico, 

 where the natives frequently kidnap individuals, there are 

 many instances of their perfect naturalization among the 

 savages. There are said to live in the valley Simbura, at 

 some distance from Carimango in the province Loxa in Ecuador, 

 Spaniards of pure blood sunk into a complete state of barbar- 

 ism, possessing a degenerate language, without a trace of 

 historical tradition. 3 Europeans perfectly degenerate, in fact 

 cannibals, like the natives, have been found by Lery 4 among the 

 Tupinambas, and latterly they have been met with on the Fiji 

 islands, 5 as a parallel to which may be mentioned that the 

 habit of eating human flesh spread in the thirteenth century, 

 first in consequence of a famine, among all classes of the 

 Egyptian population. 6 How much civilization and degeneracy 

 depend on external circumstances has been repeatedly proved. 

 Before the breaking out of the war with the Iroquois (1685), 

 says Charleroix, 7 the French were entirely unprotected, and 

 constantly surrounded by pressing dangers ; nevertheless they 

 lived like savages, in perfect carelessness, nor made they any 

 attempt to discipline and combine their forces. Careless and 

 improvident, says Irving, 8 of a hunting expedition through the 

 prairies, as hunters generally are, they feasted continually, 

 without any thought of laying in a provision for the following 

 day. Does the savage act otherwise ? As regards moral dis- 

 positions, it can still less be maintained that the white race 

 possesses any great advantage above other races. The atroci- 

 ties we see committed by savages (and sometimes by our- 

 selves) in cold blood, without the least scruple, and their 

 insensibility to all moral relations, has something so repulsive 

 for the civilized man, that he feels inclined to assume that they 



1 Baily, "Journal of a Tour in 1796," p. 770, Ausland, 1856; Wilkes, 

 " United States Exploring Expedition," iv, pp. 357, 360; v, p. 143. 



2 " Eeise dnrch den Wester der V. St." ' 



3 Tschudi, " D. Kechua-Sprache," i, p. 8. According to Velasco, " Hist, 

 del reino de Quito," iii, pp. 2, 15, 17, who, perhaps, followed Alcedo. 



4 " Reise in Brasil iibers," p. 258, 1794. 



5 "Ausland," p. 936, 1857. 



6 Abd Allatif, bei Humboldt und Bonpland, " Keise," iv, p. 373. 



7 " Ges. v. Neu-Frankreich," p. 286, in Allg., " Hist, der Keisen." 



8 Ausflug auf die Prairien. 



