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THE LAST OF THE TASMANIANS.

they have been superior to the dark race, they have been, perhaps, even inferior to them in morals. How far this has arisen from unfavourable circumstances may appear in subsequent narratives. The Rev. George Taplin, Missionary to the Australian Natives, once gave me this description of the half-castes: "They are generally very bad and low, especially the women." Professor Agassiz has some melancholy reflections upon this subject "Let any one," he says, "who doubts the evil of this mixture of races, and is inclined from a mistaken philanthropy to break down all barriers between them, come to Brazil. He cannot deny the deterioration consequent upon an amalgamation of races, more wide-spread than in any other country in the world, and which is rapidly effacing the best qualities of the white race, the Negro, and the Indian, leaving the mongrel nondescript type deficient in physical and mental energy."

Although it is said that there are used in Peru twenty-three appellations for varieties of humanity from the three stocks of White, Negro, and Indian, we may cite the following from Dr. Wilson's "Prehistoric Man," as known in Mexico:—

White and Negro produce a Mulatto.
White and Indian "Mestizo.
Indian and Negro "Chiuo or Zambo.
White and Mulatto "Cuarteron.
White and Mestiza "Creole.
White and Cuarterona "Quintero.
White and Quintera "White.
Negro and Mulatto "Cubra.
Negro and Mestiza "Mulatto—Oscuro.
Mulatto and Zambo "Zambo.
Mulatto and Mestiza "Chino.

An interesting question has been raised as to the fecundity of the mixed races. Dr. Broca, of Paris, is correct in saying, "We may assume it as a fact that cross-breeds of Europeans and native Australian men are very rare." Some reasons have been already mentioned. It should, however, be borne in mind that while intercourse between Whites and Tasmanian gins was not unfrequent, the latter were almost uniformly found among the besotted and degraded creatures near the townships, subsisting upon the food of the strangers, and given up to drunkenness and indiscriminate licentiousness. To suppose such women