File:The Andes and the Amazon -bor across the continent of South America (1876) (14598080149).jpg

Identifier: andesamazonborac76orto (find matches)
Title: The Andes and the Amazon :;bor across the continent of South America
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors: Orton, James
Subjects:
Publisher: New York: Harper
Contributing Library: Natural History Museum Library, London
Digitizing Sponsor: Natural History Museum Library, London

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ejudices. It is a curious fact, observed by Wallace,t that everywhere in the East where the Portuguese have mixed withthe native races, they have become darker in color thaneither of the parent stocks. The i-everse is the case inSouth America, where the mixture of the Portuguese orBrazilian with Indian produces the Mameluco, who is notunfrequently lighter than either parent, and always lighterthan the Indian. Mr. Darwins theory of coloration bynatural selection is hardly borne out on the Maranon. It was a notorious fact, in my wanderings in the Mon-tana (writes Dr. Gait), that the Indian was more liableto miasmatic poison than the lighter races, not only fromexposure, but from a more susceptible system; and al- * Keller, however, remarks (p. 131) that no one will assert that theblack-haired, dark-eyed mestizoes of these countries (Pernambuco, Para,etc.) are less fit to live and work under the glowing rays of the tropical sunthan the fair sons of the North. t Malay Archipelago, p. 341.
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Indian Charactek. 469 though the Xegro has an exemption from yellow feverfrom prolonged acclimatization, he is very liable to theordinary malarial fevers. The typical South American Indian is by nature morepeaceable and submissive than his Northern brother. Ifsome tribes are treacherous and cruel, one has only towitness the Spanish-Portuguese system of extortion andoppression to wonder that they are not all transformedinto devils. Their inflexibility, taciturnity, and povertyof thought are mainly owing to their isolated life. Be-sides, having no other occupation than to keep from starv-ing, their minds are nearly blank. As Bates truly says, all Indians have the same way of thinking, and the sameobjects to talk about.* They are without curiosity oremotion, gloomy like the dense forests they love so well;for here, as e\ery where else, man is molded by the na-ture which surrounds him. It will never be possible for two consecutive travelersto agree on the names and localities of the Amazo

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