320
Martinique
Sketches.
t o r s ; * the mulatto began to give evidence of those qualities of physical and mental power which were afterwards to render him dangerous to the integrity of the colony itself. In a temperate climate such a change would have been so gradual as to escape observation for a long period ;—in the tropics it was effected with a quickness that astounds by its revelation of the natural forces at work. — " Under the sun of the tropics," writes Dr. Rufz, of Martinique, " the African race, as well as the European, becomes greatly modified in its reproduction. Either race gives birth to a totally new being. The C r e o l e African COOLIE HALF-BREED. came into existence as did the Creole white. And just as the offspring of Europeans who emigrated to the tropics from different parts of France displayed characteristics so identical that it was impossible to divine the original race-source, — so likewise the Creole negro — whether brought into being by the heavy thick-set Congo, or the long slender black of Senegambia, or the suppler and more active Mandingo,—appeared so remodelled, homogeneous, and adapted in such wise to his environment that it was utterly impossible to discern in his features anything of his parentage, his original kindred, his origi* " L e u r sueur n'est pas fétide c o m m e celle des nègres d e la G u i n é e , " writes the traveller D a u x i o n - L a v a y s s e , in 1813.