Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/555

Rh races can not live and multiply in the fertile regions near the equator. It is assumed as a self-evident truism that the blacks or colored races can better resist the climatic conditions. The statescraft of to-day, acting upon this assumption, is bending its energies to laying the foundations of an external dominion over the hot regions of the earth. Spheres of influence, not fields for emigration, are the subjects of the preoccupation of European cabinets; trade and political control are more sought than opportunities for colonization.

The popular impression as to the suitability of the tropics for white settlement rests upon two commonly observed phenomena: The places most visited by travelers, and therefore best known, are inhabited principally by colored races; the white man loses vigor when suddenly transported into winterless regions from the more vigorous climates where his ancestors have been living for unnumbered generations. Besides, the white emigrant usually dislikes the social, industrial and political surroundings, becomes discouraged, and in most cases returns strongly prepossessed against the tropics.

As to permanent powers of reproduction and survival, the existing predominance of colored races and the ill health and dissatisfaction of newly arrived whites only create a presumption—they do not conclusively prove anything. The negroes may predominate in Jamaica, because black immigration to that island was vastly more numerous than white, and not because the whites that did go there died out. The Caucasian newly arrived in Rio de Janeiro is susceptible to yellow fever, but his children born in Brazil may not be less immune than the offspring of black slaves.

Many things I have seen during a long residence in tropical Brazil and in journeys through the states of that republic and of neighboring countries have led me to doubt the correctness of the general impression. Personal observations unaided by adequate statistics are notoriously untrustworthy, and one should be slow in drawing conclusions from them. However, no one can long travel and reside in Brazil without noticing that white families are large and their children healthy. A large proportion can trace their descent to colonial times. Whites are preferred to negroes, mulattoes or Indians as laborers on the railroads and coffee plantations, not only because they are more intelligent, but because they are stronger, healthier and more energetic. The white may be more susceptible to certain climatic diseases, but the negro is less able to resist others, and is decimated by such communicable maladies as smallpox and consumption. The white eats more and better food, lives more hygienically and protects himself more effectually against the weather.

A study of the population statistics of Brazil leads to some surprising conclusions. The returns of marriages and births show that