Note 125 — Chapter XVIII
Reading edition
Dr. Livingstone, after speaking of a half-caste man on the Zambesi, described by the Portuguese as a rare monster of humanity, "remarks, 'It is unaccountable why half-castes, such as he, are so much more cruel than the Portuguese, but such is undoubtedly the case.' An inhabitant remarked to Livingstone, 'God made white men, and God made black men, but the devil made half castes.' When two races, both low in the scale, are crossed, the progeny seem to be eminently bad. Thus the noble-hearted Humboldt speaks in strong terms of the bad and savage disposition of Zambos, or half-castes between Indians and Negroes; and this conclusion has been arrived at by various observers. From these facts we may perhaps infer that the degraded state of so many half-castes is in part due to reversion to a primitive and savage condition, as well as to the unfavorable moral conditions under which they generally exist."—Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii. p. 63.