296 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



an opportunity of accumulating a mass of new and interest- 

 ing information on the many varieties of the colored races, 

 produced by the crossing of Indians, negroes, and whites, 

 which he has recorded not only in notes, but in a very com- 

 plete series of photographs. Perhaps nowhere in the world 

 can the blending of types among men be studied so fully 

 as in the Amazons, where mamelucos, cafuzos, mulattoes, 

 cabocos, negroes, and whites are mingled in a confusion that 

 seems at first inextricable. I insert below a few extracts 

 from his notes on this subject, which he purposes to treat 

 more in detail, should he find time hereafter to work up 

 the abundant material he has collected. 



" However naturalists may differ respecting the origin of 

 species, there is at least one point on which they agree, 

 namely, that the offspring from two so-called different 

 species is a being intermediate between them, sharing the 

 peculiar features of both parents, but resembling neither so 

 closely as to be mistaken for a pure representative of the 

 one or the other. I hold this fact to be of the utmost 

 importance in estimating the value and meaning of the 

 differences observed between the so-called human races. 

 I leave aside the question of their probable origin, and 

 even that of their number ; for my purpose, it does not 

 matter whether there are three, four, five, or twenty 

 human races, and whether they originated independently 

 from one another or not. The fact that they diff"'^r by 

 constant permanent features is in itself sufficient to justify a 

 comparison between the human races and animal species. 

 We know that, among animals, when two individuals of 

 different sex and belonging to distinct species produce an 

 offspring, the latter does not closely resemble either parent, 

 but shares the characteristics of both ; and it seems to 



