That the race as a whole lost its
European vigour and its northern principles was inevitable. This was the
price of peace.
The subject is one into which climatic influence enters largely. Many
of the districts of Brazil were not, and are not, in the least suited as
a permanent place of residence for the white man. Were an attempt to be
made to populate such places as these by Europeans, it could only be
done by means of a continual change of inhabitants. That is to say, each
resident, having spent a certain number of years in the spot, must be
succeeded by another in order to preserve the integrity and vigour of
the race.
Portugal, with an extraordinary generosity, flung her handful of white
colonists into the vast lands she had discovered, and hoped by this
means to raise the leaven of the whole. In India, as exemplified in Goa,
the result has met with scant success. In Brazil, however, where the
proportion of white to black was greater, a race of intellect and
culture has been developed, although occasionally subject to the mental
paroxysms of the dwellers in the tropics. In any case it may be said
that the colour question has never existed in Brazil--so far, at all
events, as the Indian is concerned.
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