I. The possibility of establishing the harmony, of which I have spoken in the preceding chapter, has been denied. It has been argued that it must exist beforehand, and that instead of becoming acclimatised, people merely becomeaccustomedto a given place. It will be easy to show from what takes place in animals and plants, that there is, in their case, something more than this, and that the organisation is sometimes modified in its most intimate relations so as to conform to the exigencies of conditions of life, which are by nature inflexible.
The chrysanthemum (Pyretrum sinense), which adorns our gardens, came, as we know, originally from China. Introduced into France in 1790, it flourished there and produced fruit which it was unable to ripen, so that commerce alone supplied our flower gardens with the necessary seed for more than sixty years. The attempt to rear it in hot-houses and frames met with very small success. In 1852 a few plants were observed to flower and to fruit sooner than the others; the seeds ripened, and France now produces all the seed which she requires. A small number of accidentally precocious plants have, therefore, acclimatised this beautiful flower.
The history of the Egyptian goose (Anser egyptiacus) is still more striking. Brought to France in 1801, by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, this species at first laid in December, as in its native country. It reared its brood in the depth of winter, and consequently under very unfavourable circumstances. Several generations were, nevertheless, reared at the Museum.Now in 1844 the birds laid in February, the following year in March, and in 1846 in April, the time at which our common goose lays. Is it not clear that the organisation of the Egyptian goose had accommodated itself to the conditions imposed by our climate?
This marvellous faculty of living beings is sometimes even inconvenient. French vines when removed to the island of Bourbon yield grapes continually, so that the mixture of clusters in every stage of development and maturity has been a serious obstacle in the manufacture of the wine. Silkworms have acted in a similar manner; they have laid their eggs and spun their cocoons with perfect indifference as to the season of the year, and in such an irregular manner as to force breeders to give up rearing them.
Acclimatisation, that is to say,physiological adaptationto new conditions of life, is an incontestable fact. All our domestic races which have been imported into America are prospering there. When the conditions of existence have been almost the same as those of their native country, they have changed but little. When the new conditions have differed too widely from the old ones, local races have been formed; and thus, though perhaps assisted by human industry,pigs with fleeceare to be found on the cold plateaux of the Cordilleras,sheep with hairin the warm valleys of the Madeleine, andhairless cattlein the burning plains of Mariquita. Is it not clear that these pigs, sheep, and oxen, these descendants of our races in temperate climates, have established a harmony between themselves and the conditions of life?
II. But, as I said before, this harmony is scarcely ever obtained without struggles and sacrifices. In this respect again man resembles plants and animals. Let us see, in the first place, what may be learnt on this subject from these beings of inferior organisation.
It is well known that two kinds of wheat are recognised by agriculturalists, one of which is sown in spring and the other in autumn, both being reaped at about the same time.It is evident that the conditions of development are very different in the two cases. To sow a spring wheat in autumn, was, so to speak, changing the condition of existence, and, consequently, attempting an experiment in acclimatisation. This was done by the celebrated Abbé Tessier. A hundred seeds of autumn wheat were sown in spring; they all came up and produced young plants, which passed through the usual stages of vegetation. Only ten plants, however, formed seeds, which only ripened upon four plants. A hundred seeds of this first crop produced fifty fertile plants. In the third generation the hundred seeds produced corn. The inverse experiment gave similar results.
The acclimatisation of wheat at Sierra Leone offers still more instructive peculiarities. The first year almost all the seed ran to leaf; the ears were very few, and poorly filled. The seeds of this first crop were sown; a great number did not come, up at all. Those which survived were a little more fertile. Much patience was, however, required, and many generations passed before normal crops were obtained. We see that in Tessier’s experiment all the seeds of wheat and their germs lived, but the grain was wanting, or was more or less abortive. There was, then, aloss of generations. The same thing occurred at Sierra Leone. Moreover, the second time the seed was sown, some of it never came up at all. Here, therefore, the loss of individuals was added to that of generations.
The history of our poultry which has been imported into America, presents equally significant facts. At Cuzco the broods are just as large as in Europe. Garcilasso de la Véga tells us, however, that in his time the eggs were few, and the chickens difficult to rear. The species has, since then, become acclimatised.
When M. Roulin made his observations upon the geese imported into Bogota, it was more than twenty years since they had been first brought to that high plateau, and, even then, they had not attained their normal fecundity. They were not, however, far from it, while at first the eggs werevery rare. A quarter, at the most, of the eggs were hatched, and half the goslings died before the end of the first month. Thus, on the one hand, the Bogota breeder did not obtain nearly as many eggs as he would have done in Europe, while, on the other hand, at the end of a period scarcely equal to the two-hundredth part of the life of the goose, he obtained from these eggs scarcely one-eighth of what they would have produced in Europe.
The history of these Bogota geese is most instructive. At the outset we meet with all those circumstances which would seem to justify us in the prediction of a failure. The infertility of the females, as attested by the rarity of the eggs, and that of the males, as shown in the strong proportion of addle eggs, point to a serious physiological injury to the organs whose action alone insures the permanence of the species. The enormous mortality among the young birds betrayed a no less serious alteration in the components of individual life. Nevertheless, at the time of M. Roulin’s journey, acclimatisation had been almost realised, and must without doubt now be completed.
More than twenty years were, however, necessary for the organisation of this European bird to establish a harmony between itself and the conditions of existence on the high plateaus of America. The breeders were consequently forced to submit to many losses, affecting both generations and individuals.
We see what took place in the case of the fowls and geese as well as in that of the wheat. Shortly after their emigration the climate killed all those who were unable to conform to the new exigencies. A certain number offered sufficient resistance to live almost as long as they would have done under their natural conditions of existence; but their weakened organisation was unfitted for generation, or could only produce beings which at once succumbed. Through all these disasters, however, a few privileged organisations conformed, from the first, more or less to the new exigencies. With slight modifications they transmitted their ownacquirements combined with the suitable aptitudes to their progeny, who in turn made further advances in the direction opened by their parents; and from year to year the adaptation was more complete, the acclimatisation more nearly realised.
But it is evident that years here represent generations. It is only from parent to offspring, through heredity and accumulation, that the living being becomes modified, and by degrees harmonises with the conditions of life. When, however, we are no longer studying an animal, plant, or a bird, which has the faculty of yearly reproduction, but species or races of a more tardy reproduction, we must remember that it is necessary to reckon by generations, and not by years.
III. Such are the data by which we are enabled to judge of the attempts at acclimatisation made by man himself. I cannot too often repeat the fact that, in common with organised and living beings, we are subject to all the general laws which govern life and organisation in animals and plants. Our intelligence is unquestionably of assistance to us in our struggles with nature, but, unfortunately, the power which we derive from her is limited, and in no case are we placed at greater disadvantage than in the increasing struggle demanded by a considerable change in conditions of life. The most ingenious efforts are then unable to free man from vicissitudes more or less analogous to those suffered by the wheat of Sierra Leone, the fowls at Cuzco, and the geese at Bogota.
We must, then, almost always be prepared for sacrifices, the extent and gravity of which will be proportionate to the differences, as regards conditions of existence, between the two countries, and we must almost always expect to lose a certain number of individuals and generations. Everything depends upon judging facts fairly, not exaggerating their importance, and seeing how far they justify a hope of success in spite of appearances. If the losses are merely equal to those I have just mentioned, or, better still, if they are fewer in number, we may prophesy a favourable result; and, if thevictory is worth the price, we must leave the rest to perseverance and time.
IV. Events in Algeria confirm these observations. After the conquest it was everywhere, as also in France, a question whether it would be possible to colonise the country taken from the Turks and Arabs. Dr. Knox declared most emphatically that such a colonisation was impossible, and that the French would never be able to increase or even live in Africa. It must be confessed that this opinion found many and strong supporters. After the first few years of occupation the generals, as well as the doctors, were almost all of the same opinion. M. Boudin supported, with distressing statistics, the views of his colleagues, Marshal Bugeaud and Generals Duvivier and Cavaignac.
Relying upon what I know to have taken place with regard to birds, I did not hesitate to attack these discouraging prophecies. Military and civil mortality was in 1845 doubtless much more considerable in Algeria than in France, and the number of deaths must again have exceeded that of births. But emigration was at that time abundant and continual. Now, if the influx of new arrivals filled the voids caused by the change in conditions of existence, it at the same time augmented the mortality by continually bringing forward recruits to this war against conditions of life. The rate of deaths amongst children was almost double that reported by French statistics; but the proportion of deaths was still much less than that among the first geese at Bogota. Finally, far from having been weakened, the fertility of the women had increased; the sources of life were therefore much less affected in this case than upon the high plateaus of America.
From all these considerations, I felt justified in concluding that the acclimatisation of the French in Algeria was certain of success, and would not require twenty generations. My opinion has been corroborated by events much sooner than I expected. The census of 1870 showed in the European population of Algeria an increase of 25,000, due almostentirely to the superiority of the number of births over that of deaths. The action of the first generation born in the country began to make itself felt, and from that time the result has been still more striking. In two or three more generations the French Creole will live in Algeria quite as well as his ancestors have lived in France.
There are, however, distinctions which must be drawn with regard to the facility of acclimatisation in Algeria, between the different European races, and even between the inhabitants of the north and south of France. The statistics offered by MM. Boudin, Martin, and Foley show clearly that the Spaniards and Maltese stand the Algerian climate infinitely better than the English, Belgians, or Germans. Now, the inhabitants of the north of France strongly resemble the latter nations in race and habits. In both these respects the inhabitants of southern France are connected, on the contrary, with the inhabitants of Malta and Spain. We might, therefore, without much fear of error, prophesy that the latter had, either for themselves or their descendants, a much greater chance of surviving than the French of Alsatian and Flemish origin. Experience has again fully confirmed these deductions of theory.
V. The information which we derive from these facts taking place, so to speak, at our very doors, and among races with which we are very closely connected, may, with perfect justice, be applied to conditions of life more widely different in character, to races which are much more distinct from each other than the French and the Belgians. Nevertheless, the conclusion so obtained would have the same value as that drawn from a general formula, the signification of which changes with the data. When the question is one of acclimatisation, these data always rise from the two elements mentioned above: conditions of race and life. If either vary, even though it be but slightly and within narrow limits, the result is necessarily altered, and often in a very unexpected manner. Every question of acclimatisation, in reality then, forms a separate problem, which often, again, issub-divided into a number of particular cases, each of which demands a special solution. Without leaving the French colonies, we can quote on this subject another most striking example.
Anthropologists, as well as doctors, have often questioned the possibility of the acclimatisation of Europeans in the archipelagoes of the great Mexican Gulf, which, through yellow fever and the influences by which it is developed, is particularly fatal to him. At first sight, it is true, a number of general facts seem to leave no doubt that the answer should be in the affirmative. Since the discovery of America Europeans have always occupied these islands, and the White race, bringing with it the Negro, have everywhere replacedthe Caribbean race. In answer to this statement, it has been argued that these islands are one of the most favourite parts of the globe for emigration, and that by this means alone a population is maintained, which, if left to itself, would soon disappear. Calculations are opposed to calculations, statistics to statistics, and were we to approach the subject without analysing facts, the question would appear most obscure.
To solve it in those cases only in which France is interested, we will speak only of Guadeloupe and Martinique. We know that these islands were colonised by the French only 235 years ago. Even allowing the very liberal ratio of four generations to the century, we find that, at the most, ten generations have elapsed in these islands, the climate of which is of all others the most fatal to Europeans. Now, more than twenty generations were necessary to acclimatise the geese at Bogota. The experiment, therefore, is not complete. Nevertheless, in presence of the facts of longevity and fecundity attested by M. Simonot, we do not hesitate to share his opinions. Although the French race may not yet be acclimatised in Martinique and Guadeloupe, we may be certain that it soon will be.
It is no less true that statistics attest an excess of deaths over births. The information which they furnish has, however,been presented without distinction. Old and new creoles have been mixed together, as well as the latest emigrants, in a common estimate. Elements, which are fundamentally very different have thus been confounded. For a work of this kind to have any real value, it is absolutely necessary to divide the population into classes determined by the time of emigration, and to estimate the length of time itself by the number of generations. By proceeding in this manner, we shall undoubtedly establish in the mortality of groups striking differences, more or less analogous to those displayed by the generations of plants and animals transported into Africa or America.
The statistics in question are still further vitiated by a fault, which is completely exposed by M. Walther in his work upon Guadeloupe. He, also, has drawn up tables of mortality; only, instead of taking the populationen masse, he studied each district separately. Very significant differences then made their appearance. Considered as a whole the population of Guadeloupe offers an annual excess of 0·46 deaths over births, that is to say, nearly one-half per cent. In presence of these facts, the statisticians whose views I am attacking, would certainly have concluded that the European is not acclimatised in Guadeloupe, and have declared, that, after a certain time, which might easily be calculated, this colonial population would become extinct, if the voids were not incessantly filled by fresh immigrants.
When, however, we examine the table of mortality taken by districts, we arrive at very different conclusions. These districts number thirty-one. Now, in fifteen the number of births is greater than that of deaths. In the little island of Marie-Galante this is the case in two districts out of three. Thus, the terrible calculations of the mean mortality are due entirely to the exaggeration of mortality in certain districts, while the European has become acclimatised in the others.
The tables of mortality drawn up in Algeria by M. Boudin present analogous facts. Out of sixty-nine localities, fifty-five have shown, since 1857, an excess of births over deaths.
The general result obtained by M. Walther may be thus explained. The French race is acclimatised in Guadeloupe in fifteen localities, but not in the remaining sixteen. Of these two statements, the first should be considered as definitely proved; the second requires confirmation, for a closer examination of the populations of the most unhealthy districts, and a study of them in classes, is still required.
However this may be, every unprejudiced person will acknowledge that we can no longer question the fact of acclimatisation inGuadeloupeas a whole. It should now only be a question of acclimatisation atBasse terra, atPointe-à-Pitre, atPointe-Noire, etc.
VI. The French Antilles, as also the greater number of the sister islands, are the scene of valuable experiments upon the aptitude of different human races to stand this exceptional climate, which is one of the most difficult to overcome. The Negro was carried there by force very shortly after the occupation of the islands by the Whites, and has lived there in a state of slavery till within the last few years. As the condition of the parents was inherited by the children, there is little room for doubt, but that after a given time the local multiplication of the Blacks would have sufficed for all the wants of agriculture and industry, if the race had become acclimatised. The incessant activity of the slave trade, seems to show that the number of deaths must have greatly exceeded that of births. There appears to be no doubt as to the truth of the fact for the island of Cuba or for Jamaica. General Tulloch, struck by the mortality of the Negroes in the English Antilles, has not hesitated to declare that if the trade were once suppressed, the whole race would disappear in these islands before the close of a century. The researches of M. Boudin justify us in regarding this assertion as an exaggeration, at least as regards the French possessions.
Neither the English nor the French author has, however, taken into consideration a circumstance, the importance of which cannot be denied. I allude to the conditions imposed upon the Negro by slavery. It is clear that the characterand conduct of the master played an important part in the probability of the life or death of the slave. Without feeling himself to be, and without being inhuman, the master might demand more labour from him than his nature could support, or violate those instincts, the free play of which is necessary to health. This was certainly the case in Cuba, where it was the general practice to get as much out of the slaves as possible, thus creating the necessity for more frequent renewal. We have here, doubtless, one of those causes by which the mortality of a race, better fitted than ours for intertropical climates, is so immoderately increased. Facts seem to justify these conjectures. “Since the abolition of slavery,” says M. Elisée Reclus, “the Negro population has been on the increase in the English islands.”
However singular this fact may appear to some anthropologists, it is only a repetition of what took place in Brazil. There again, it was said, that the slave trade alone maintained a black population, which was destined to diminish and disappear as soon as this enforced immigration should cease. Authentic documents show that the opposite has taken place. The slave trade was abolished long before slavery in this great Empire. For many years the proprietors, being unable to purchase fresh slaves, took care of those in their possession, and from that time the Negroes have multiplied. Thus it was that during the period in which the missionaries of the Jesuits flourished, that portion of the black race in which they were interested was observed to increase in an extraordinary manner, whilst in the rich haciendas, where it was uncared for and overworked, it dwindled away.
By the side of the Negro Creole, there are now in the French Antilles labourers engaged more or less voluntarily from the same coasts of Africa, representativesof the Semiticwhite race from Madeira, Chinese of yellow race, and Indian coolies, who are almost all dravidian, and consequently a cross between the black and the yellow. It will be interesting at some future time, to show what resistance each of thesenations has offered to the terrible climate they are confronting. The experiment is, at present, only begun. Nevertheless M. Walther has already obtained some interesting data at Guadeloupe. The mean annual mortality of the Creoles is 3·28 per 100; that of immigrants, 9·66 for the Chinese; 7·68 for Negroes; 7·12 for Hindoos; and 5·80 for the natives of Madeira. Unfortunately, the statistics are doubtful, and differ from those which M. Du Hailly has given for Martinique. They must, however, both be recorded as the starting point for new study. There is, moreover, no cause for despair. It is clear, for example, that the natives of Madeira will very quickly become acclimatised in Guadeloupe, as is already the case in Cuba, and the much more serious mortality of the Negro, Chinese, and Hindoo races does not prove the impossibility of their ever inhabiting these islands.
VII. The conditions of life and the nature of the race are not all in the numerous problems raised by acclimatisation. Man, even individually, brings his special elements to bear upon it. The savage and the modern European are placed, by the mere fact of the social differences which separate them, in conditions often opposite, and not always in favour of the latter.
Even the marvels of modern industry, whilst facilitating immigration into distant lands, make it more dangerous. Railways and steamers have reduced the longest journeys to a mere nothing. Lands, which it took our ancestors centuries to people, distances which our own fathers could only travel over in several months, are accomplished by us in a few days. We have here, then, yet another to be added to the many difficulties of acclimatisation. It is a common thing in Paris to hear men complain of the effects of a mere journey from Algiers. The rapidity of the transit gives a shock to the organisation, although tending to replace it under its natural conditions of life. The shock is necessarily greater when the journey is made in the other direction, and we go against our physical habits, instead of returning tothem. And, when after a few days’ voyage, instead of Algiers, we land at Rio de Janeiro or the Antilles, the shock must be great indeed.
Modern civilisation is also answerable to a great extent for the losses involved by every settlement in a climate differing too widely from our own. By reason of the security with which she surrounds the poor as well as the rich, of the at least relative ease which is enjoyed by all classes of society, we are little prepared for the struggle for existence. Without going so far back as primitive man or the Aryans, let us simply call to mind Balbao, Pizarro, Cortez, Soto, Monbars, and their rough companions; can the present generation offer such a resistance as theirs?
It is not, however, by its luxuries only that civilisation renders us unfit to confront the chances of acclimatisation. It is also, and principally, by the vices which too often accompany it. M. Bolot, who was in charge of a number of men employed for the construction of a pier at Grand Bassam, said to Captain Vallon: “A Sunday will put more of my men in the hospital, than three days of work in the full heat of the sun.” This was because Sunday was given up to debauchery.
Here, again, is a fact forming, so to speak, an experiment such as might have been imagined by a physiologist. The Isle of Bourbon passes for one of those disastrous climates to which the European cannot become acclimatised. The tables of mortality which relate to the whole population do, in fact, show that the deaths exceed the births to a formidable extent. This is, however, another of those sweeping results, into which we must inquire if we wish to understand its true meaning.
The Whites of Bourbon form, in reality, two classes, or rather two races, distinct in their manners and customs. The former includes the population of towns and large settlements, who lead the ordinary life of colonists, and especially avoid agricultural labour, considered by Creoles as degrading as well as fatal. The latter includes theMeanWhites, descendants of the original colonists, who, too poor to buy slaves, were forced to cultivate the land with their own hands.
Now, of these two classes of colonists, it is the former alone which supply the mortality to which attention is so often drawn. The Mean Whites live as their fathers lived; they inhabit and cultivate the less fertile districts of the island. Far from having deteriorated, their race has improved, and the women, in particular, are remarkable for beauty of form and feature. The race maintains itself perfectly, and seems to be on the increase. Crossing, moreover, has no influence in the matter, for the Mean White, proud of the purity of blood which constitutes his nobility, will not, at any price, ally himself with the Negro or Coolie.
Thus at Bourbon, indolence, and the habits which it involves, destroy the rich, and those who try to imitate them, while the poor become acclimatised through sobriety, purity of manners, and a moderate amount of work. From the latter, anthropologists and all the world may learn a lesson of grave importance, at once scientific and moral.
VIII. Finally, acclimatisation and naturalisation are as universal in history as migration, of which they are the consequence. We see them daily accomplished under our very eyes, and with the most different races, though almost invariably at the price of human life. In many places, they are purchased very cheaply, so much so, that study alone teaches us that new conditions of life in no case entirely lose their rights. In others, specially in countries characterised by an extreme climate, they involve considerable losses. But there is nothing to authorise us to deny the existence of acclimatisation and naturalisation. Everything, on the contrary, proves that if they are willing to submit to the necessary sacrifices, all human races may live and prosper in almost every climate which is not vitiated by accidental causes.
IX. In this case, as in many others, the present explains the past, which also contributes its share of information.Relying upon our own daily experience, and upon facts borrowed from history, we can form a general idea of the manner in which the world has been peopled.
The history of the Aryan race alone, gives us, so to speak, that of the whole species. We see it starting from the Bolor, and Hindoo Koh, from the Eeriéné Veedjo, where the summer only lasted two months, descending into Bokhara, and overrunning Persia and Cabul before reaching the basin of the Indus. Eleven stations mark this route followed by the Aryans before reaching the Ganges. We there find them again slowly advancing, though all the time sending forth as a vanguard, thosepious heroes, who slew the Rakchassas, and prepared the way for conquests. The race is now in the tropics in India, in the Polar circle in Greenland, where the Norwegians and Danes have replaced the Sea-Kings; it spreads over an immense region of more or less temperate climate, and possesses colonies in every part of the world.
The human species must have made a beginning like the Aryans. Upon leaving their centre of creation, it was by slow stages, that the primitive colonists, ancestors of all existing races, marched forth to the conquest of the uninhabited world. They thus accustomed themselves to the different conditions of existence imposed upon them by the north, the south, the east, or the west, cold or heat, plain or mountain. Diverging in every direction, and meeting with different conditions of life, they gradually established a harmony between themselves and each one of them. Thus acclimatisation, advancing at the same rate as geographical conquest, was less fatal. The struggle, however, though mitigated indeed by the slowness of the advance, still existed, and many pioneers must have fallen upon the route. But the survivors had only nature to face, and, therefore, succeeded, and peopled the world.