Jump to content

Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/46

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
36
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to ascertain those of their bodies, so what I shall now set forth is stated with much doubt. It represents my own opinion, qualified by that of others whose judgments I have sought. In the Guinea type we have a folk of essentially limited intelligence. The children are rather nimble-witted, but when the body begins to be mature it dominates the mind. It seems likely that thus the largest element of the race is to find its place in the field or in the lower stages of craft work. The Zulu type appears to me fit for anything that the ordinary men of our own race can do. They remain through life alert and with a capacity for a vigorous reaction with their associates. From them may come the leaders of their kindred of less masterful quality. From the Arab type we may expect more highly educable people than is afforded by the other distinct groups. They have more delicate qualities. They lack the wholesome exuberance of the ordinary negro, which is commonly termed "bumptiousness." Their nature is often what we may term clerical. They are inclined to be somber, but are not morose in the manner of a "musty" elephant, as is frequently the case with the Guinea and Zulu types. Of the red or freckled negroes I have no sufficient grounds for an opinion, yet they as a whole impress me less favorably than any other of the distinct groups. As for the unclassified remainder of the blacks, it can only be said that they seem to be as varied in their mental as they are in their physical character.

The mulattoes of this country appear to be of less importance to the future of the people with which they are classed than they are in other parts of the world, where the white element of the mixture is from other than the Teutonic stock. They are in general of feeble vitality, rarely surviving beyond middle age. My father, an able physician, who had been for nearly all of a longlife in contact with negroes, was of the opinion that he had never seen a half-breed who was more than sixty years old. There is certainly a notable lack of aged people of a hue that would indicate that they were anywhere near an equal mixture of the white and black races. Those in which the blood of white stock predominates appear to be more enduring than the half-breeds.

While the intellectual qualities of the mixed white and black are often very good and the attractiveness of the person and manner sometimes remarkable, they have in general a rather bad reputation as regards trustworthiness. Such a view of mestizos is common in all countries where they occur. Humboldt is quoted (though I have not found the matter in his works) as saying that all mixed races have rather the evil than the good of the races from which they sprang. In the case of the mulattoes, at least,