196 PREJUDICES AGAINST Book 1. 
settle in the country would find any inducement to esta- 
blish himself. Greytown, Bluefields, Truxillo, Port Cortez, 
and Belize would be the ports where he should land. All 
these places are healthy. Emigrants, moreover, would 
have no occasion to stay on the coast, but might at once 
proceed into the interior, where they would find a climate 
altogether superior to any within the confines of the 
United States. 
The prejudices against tropical climates in general, in- 
tentionally propagated by the jealousy of the colonial 
system of former times, have been revived and sustained 
in more recent periods by a strange concurrence of oppo- 
site interests. It has been asserted by the defenders of 
negro slavery — and those who have learned how to appre- 
ciate the lazy life of a wealthy European in a tropical 
country will declare the statement to be absolutely correct — 
that white men are unable to work in a hot climate. On 
the other hand, some of the organs of public opinion in 
the United States opposed to the extension of slavery 
and the annexation of territory where slavery could be 
introduced, not only concur in decrying the climate of 
tropical latitudes, but even surpass their antagonists in 
their denunciations. Their intention may be honest, but 
it is never judicious to support a good cause by false 
pretences. 
The following facts, not generally known in Europe, will 
contribute to throw light on the question of " white labour " 
in regions where the climate is generally supposed to exclude 
its exercise to any available extent. 
At New Orleans the market is provided with vegetables 
mostly cultivated by Germans. They are the owners of 
the greater number of gardens that surround the city, — at 
Lafayette, Algiers, the Half-way House, and Carrol ton, — 
