ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
the most considerate words on my part, the showering of 
presents, had no effect upon him. He sat some way off, 
watching me attentively all the time, and whenever I 
moved my hands in any direction he dashed away shriek¬ 
ing, thinking that I should attempt to strangle him, for 
his mania was death by strangulation. After a while he 
returned, and in his broken, almost unintelligible language 
— his tongue was nearly paralyzed and he had difficulty 
in articulating properly — begged to be spared. 
Those people lived worse than animals, in an appall¬ 
ingly filthy condition, in two miserable, tumble-down 
sheds, open on all sides, and not more than eight feet 
high. They were reduced to that condition by inter¬ 
marriage among themselves; brothers with sisters — a 
most frequent occurrence among the “ civilized ” of 
Central Brazil — and even fathers with daughters and 
sons with their mothers: a disgusting state of affairs which 
could not very well be helped in a race and in a climate 
where the animal qualities were extraordinarily developed 
while the mental were almost entirely deficient. Worse 
still, I have had several cases under observation in which 
the animal passions had not been limited to closely related 
human beings, but extended also to animals, principally 
dogs. The degeneration of those people was indeed 
beyond all conception. It was caused, first of all, by the 
effects of the most terrible corruption of their blood, their 
subsequent impoverishment of blood through intermar¬ 
riage, the miserable, isolated existence which they led, with 
scarce and bad food, the exposure to all kinds of weather, 
and the absolute lack of thought, almost paralyzing the 
brain power. It was heart-rending to think that human 
beings could possibly degenerate to so low a level, and, 
what was worse, that beings of that kind were extraordi¬ 
narily prolific; so that, instead of being exterminated, 
which would be a mercy for the country, they were in a 
small way on the increase. 
316 
