DIFFERENCE OF RACES. 
395 
of the Atlantic ; we must ascertain where the greater por- 
tion of the population is placed ; whether near the coast, or 
concentrated in the interior, on the cold and temperate 
table-lands of the Cordilleras. "We must verify the nume- 
rical proportions between the natives and other castes ; 
search into the origin of the European families, and examine 
to what race, in each part of the colonies, belongs the greater 
number of whites. The Audalusian-Canarians of Venezuela, 
the Mountaineers* and the Biscayans of Mexico, the Cata- 
lonians of Buenos Ayres, differ essentially in their aptitude 
for agriculture, for the mechanical arts, for commerce, and 
for all objects connected with intellectual development. 
Each of those races has preserved, in the New as in the Old 
World, the shades that constitute its national physiognomy ; 
its asperity or mildness of character; its freedom from sordid 
feelings, or its excessive love of gain ; its social hospitality, 
or its taste for solitude, in the countries where the popu- 
lation is for the most part composed of Indians and mixed 
races, the difference betweeu the Europeans and their 
descendants cannot indeed be so strongly marked, as that 
w hich existed anciently in the colonies ot Ionian and Doric 
origin. The Spaniards transplanted to the torrid zone, 
estranged from the habits of their mother-country, must 
have felt more sensible changes than the Greeks settled on 
the coasts of Asia Minor, and of Italy, where the climates 
differ so little from those of Athens and Corinth. It cannot 
be denied that the character of the Spanish Americans has 
been variously' modified by the physical nature of the 
country ; the isolated sites of the capitals on tho table-lands 
or in the vicinity of the coasts ; the agricultural life ; the 
labour of the mines, and the habit of commercial speculation: 
but in the inhabitants of Caracas, Santa Ee, Quito, and 
Buenos Ayres, we recognize everywhere something which 
belongs to the race and tho filiation of the people. 
If we examine the state of the Capitania-General of 
Caracas, according to the principles here laid down, we 
perceive that agricultural industry, the great mass of popu- 
lation, the numerous towns, and everything connected with 
advanced civilization, are found near the coast. This coast 
Montaheses. The inhabitants of the mountains ( f Santander are 
called by this name in Spain. 
