Note 21 — Chapter IV · THE LLANEROS.

Mons. de Lavayesse, in his interesting work on Venezuela, makes some pertinent remarks on this subject worthy of the consideration and study of learned physiologists. “Why is it,” he says, “that individuals proceeding from a mixture of African and indigenous American blood, have greater strength, finer forms, more intellectual faculties and moral energy, than the Negro or Indian? Why, although the white be, in general, superior in strength of body, mental powers, and in moral force, to the aboriginal American and to the negro—why, I ask, are the individuals born of the union of a white with an Indian woman, (the Mestizos, for instance,) inferior in mental and corporeal qualities to the Zambos? Why are the Mestizos generally distinguished by finer figures, agreeable countenances, and in mildness and docility of their dispositions? Why is the mulatto, son of a white and a negress, superior to the Zambo in intellectual faculties, but his inferior in physical? Why is it, that when those races are mixed, their progeny is remarkable for a more healthy and vigorous constitution, and for more vital energy, than the individuals born in the same climate of indigenous European or African blood, without mixture?”