Martyria Part 18

There are times in the history of men when human invectives are without force. "There are deeds of which no men are judges, and which mount, without appeal, direct to the tribunal of G.o.d."

BOOK EIGHTH.

I.

Certain branches of the human family present physical peculiarities and apt.i.tudes for certain climates which others do not. The one thrives and arrives at perfection, whilst the other languishes and dies.

Floras and Faunas have well-defined limits of lat.i.tude, beyond which they decline and become extinct, and in some countries we observe certain limitations as to longitudes. "There are tropical trees that become shrubs in our zone, and the flowers of our meadows have their types in the tapering trunks of other climes."

How rapidly the beautiful varieties of domestic animals deteriorate and disappear when removed from the localities and conditions in which they attained their excellence. The handsome Swiss cattle when carried to the plains of Lombardy, and the remarkable varieties of the English herds when removed to Central France, quickly lose their characteristics of form and superiority. Under the tropics the sheep loses its silken fleece, and the n.o.ble qualities of the dog greatly change.

Even the insect world changes greatly in every twelve degrees of lat.i.tude, and an alteration, almost total, appears in double the s.p.a.ce.

The influence of climate and locality, which exercises so positive a power in the vegetable kingdom and animal reign, affects man likewise, and would be as distinctly marked were it not resisted by the forces of the intelligence. We find under certain parallels of lat.i.tude more energy of mind and greater activity of body than at others; we observe this more distinctly with particular races or varieties than with others, thus indicating that all have not the same apt.i.tudes: again, through a combination of organic and social laws, types adapted to certain pursuits spring up in every civilized country, these types distinct from either varieties or species. We also see the sharp characteristics of races, when migrating, become less distinct, and mixtures increase, and the inferior races disappear, like "the elementary language or the primitive forms of the social state."

The observed limit of range of the Hindoo and the African, in the Old World, is not beyond 30 of the equator, and in a lower lat.i.tude than 36 the European colonies have never prospered, never succeeded, in their attempts for empire. Where now are the countless hosts of Romans, Gauls, and Vandals that have occupied Northern Africa in past times? The ethnologist of to-day cannot discover a feature, hardly a trace even, of the language of the conquerors remaining among the present tribes of occupation. Even the Roman has vanished, and the only vestige of the Carthaginian and Numidian is shown by the scattered and diminished Bergers. These varieties contended with the climate, and were gradually absorbed by the stronger native tribes.

The Mongols once held Central Europe, the Goths ruled Italy. Where are they? There is no longer Vandalic blood in Africa or Gothic blood in Italy.

In later times the strong, the fierce and dauntless Northmen held the Sicilies, and as the incorruptible Varingar guarded and upheld with their fearless swords the waning empire of the effeminate Greeks at the Dardanelles. Where are they and their descendants? The only traces are seen among the tombstones at Palermo, or in the Runic inscriptions which they sacrilegiously sculptured with their long blades of steel upon the flanks of the marble lion of the Piraeus.

II.

In the year 1600 hardly a European family could be found along the headlands and indentations of the coast which form the southern limit of the Slave States of America.

Since that time the countless mult.i.tudes of the red men who inhabited the forests of these lands have disappeared, and other races from an older world and other climes have taken their places, increasing in numbers with as great rapidity as the other declined.

We have seen here the swarthy sons of Nubia, under the fostering care of Slavery, or under the mysterious and unexplained influences of climate, increase with such rapidity, that the ratio for the last decade (previous to the war), if continued for a century, would give a black population of more than forty millions. Strange spectacle in the movement of races!

Here we see, almost during the memory of living men, a distinct race disappear, and a new nation of totally opposite character rise up, as if by magic, in their vanishing footsteps. How prophetic was the speech of the Indian chief to his tribe, when he beheld with dismay the steady progress of the white men who lived upon the cereals! "I say, then,"

exclaimed the red man, "to every one who hears me, before the trees above our heads shall have died of age, before the maples of the valley cease to yield us sugar, the race of the sowers of corn will have extirpated the race of flesh-eaters."

III.

This rate of increase observed among the blacks of our Slave States is not seen among the population of the West India Islands, where singular oscillations are exhibited, and the statistics of the past two centuries have inclined two of the most eminent European statisticians to a.s.sert that in a century the negro will nearly have disappeared from these islands.

Observations at Martinique and Guadaloupe certainly warrant the inference.

In Cuba the blacks decreased four or five thousand during the period of 1804 to 1817.

This decrease or stand-still in the progress of the race in these regions may have been caused by conditions, moral or physical, wholly within the control of man.

There are animals who will not propagate and continue their species whilst in a state of servitude, and it is reasonable to believe that the same moral causes affect the condition of enslaved mankind. Naturalists have shown how the evils of Slavery degrade animals, and Buffon has pointed out the deep and conspicuous impressions it has made upon the camel.

IV.

Since the discovery and forcible entrance of the golden Empire of Mexico, and the display of her marvellous mineral treasures by the bold Cortez and his companions, we have seen a constant stream of the Spaniards and the affiliated nations of the Latin race pouring across the Atlantic to the new worlds which were given to the house of Castile and Leon by the sublime genius of the Genoese, following the stars and the traditions of the Northmen.

Wealth and the baseless fabrics of martial glory were the alluring objects of this migrating column of men.

"Hast thou gold?" exclaimed they to the Mexican princes. "I and my companions have a malady which is only cured by gold."

After these four centuries of occupation of the elevated plains and table-lands of Mexico, where the mean temperature does not exceed 77 Fahrenheit, and where the mildness of climate, the wealth of a wonderful, prolific nature, excite the ambition and the cupidity of men; and after the long efforts at colonization, in which the parent country was almost exhausted by the drain of her best blood,--Spain finds that the predictions of Dr. Knox are rapidly being realized, and that only 600,000 Europeans and their hybrid descendants, and but 8000 Spaniards of pure blood, can be found of all the numberless hosts that have embarked for these lands. Spain halts, and reflects upon this report of her scientific commission, which shows a decrease of one half since the estimate of Humboldt, in 1793; whilst France, always blind to reason whenever the eagles of glory desire to expand their wings, persists in her useless occupation of Algeria, where Gaul has again and again vainly endeavored to rear her colonies in times past; and she now attempts to unfurl her standards and establish her inst.i.tutions on those Mexican sh.o.r.es where the blood and energy of a stronger and better adapted people have been expended in vain. Idle effort! The elements of nature are stronger than the will of men; neither do they give way to the desires or attacks of human ambition.

There are geographical boundaries which races cannot pa.s.s in pursuit of wealth or the dreams of ambition. A single generation will not determine the law of expansion and decay.

V.

In this connection it will be proper to glance over the past, among those phenomena which men have observed, and those laws which the Creator has thus far revealed to us for guidance in the procession of races or the march of intellect.

In the mysteries of the material world everything is governed by fixed and positive laws. Not a flower appears in the field to gladden the hearts of men but what rises up with invariable structure, and blooms at definite periods. Not a sparrow falls to the earth but in accordance with Nature's law. Not a star shines in the firmament but in unison with the great and illimitable designs of G.o.d. Everywhere do we observe harmony in s.p.a.ce, in movement; everywhere visible signs of a beneficent, protecting Creator. It is the same with the enormous forms of living animals as with the insignificant shapes of the insect world: all play their part in the problem of Nature. Size is nothing with the Creator; form is nothing.

Perchance

"the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great As when a giant dies."

VI.

History indicates mysterious laws in the progress of the typical stocks of the human families; and it shows, in the colonization of the past, how frail are human calculations in migration and settlement unless based upon science. "It is not unknown to me," said the Roman soldier, two thousand years ago, when about to attack the remnant of the army of Brennus, that had pa.s.sed over into Asia Minor, and conquered the land by the fierceness of their attack, and the terror of their name,--"it is not unknown to me,"

said Manlius, "that of all the nations inhabiting Asia, the Gauls have the highest reputation as soldiers.

"A fierce nation, after overrunning the face of the earth with its arms, has fixed its abode in the midst of a race of men the gentlest in the world. Their tall persons; their long, red hair; their vast shields, and swords of enormous length; their songs also when they are advancing to action; their yells and dances, and the horrid clashing of their arrows while they brandish their shields in a peculiar manner practised in their original country,--all these are circ.u.mstances calculated to strike terror. But let Greeks, and Phrygians, and Carians, who are unaccustomed to and unacquainted with these things, be frightened by such. The Romans, long acquainted with Gallic tumults, have learned the emptiness of their parade. Our forefathers had to deal with genuine native Gauls; but they are now a degenerate, a mongrel race, and in reality what they are named, Gallogrecians. Just so is the case of vegetables, the seeds not being so efficacious for preserving their original const.i.tution as the properties of the soil and climate in which they may be reared, when changed, are towards altering it. The Macedonians who settled at Alexandria, in Egypt, or in Seleucia, or Babylonia, or in any other of their colonies scattered over the world, have sunk into Syrians, Parthians, or Egyptians.

"What trace do the Tarentines retain of the hardy, rugged discipline of Sparta? Everything that grows in its own natural soil attains the greater perfection: whatever is planted in a foreign land, by a gradual change in its nature degenerates into a similitude to that which affords it nurture.

Brutes retain for a time, when taken, their natural ferocity; but after being long fed by the hands of men, they grow tame. Think ye then that Nature does not act in the same manner in softening the savage tempers of men? Do you believe these to be of the same kind that their fathers and grandfathers were?

* * * "By the very great fertility of the soil, the very great mildness of the climate, and the gentle dispositions of the neighboring nations, all that barbarous fierceness which they brought with them has been quite mollified."

And finally the Romans themselves, in spite of their sanitary measures, became from year to year more alien in blood from the genuine stock of Romulus and Remus, until the distinctive characters of the conquerors of the earth finally disappeared.

The Latins, Sabines, and primitive Etruscans pressed constantly upon them with the irresistible force of destiny. When Scipio aemilia.n.u.s was interrupted in the forum by this mongrel populace, he exclaimed, "Silence, false sons of Italy! Think ye to scare me with your brandished hands, ye whom I led myself in bonds to Rome?"

When the fierce and hardy Northmen descended into Southern Europe, they carried along with their laws a chast.i.ty and a reserve that excited universal surprise. But these virtues were not of long continuance there; the climate and the customs of the new society soon warmed their frozen imaginations, and their laws by degrees relaxed, and their manners even more than their laws.

The giants of the North many times swept down over the plains of Italy, and regenerated with fresh and pure blood the puny breeds of degenerate Rome, but they have since disappeared, and their descendants are no longer to be found in these countries.

VII.

In relation to the futile efforts of Spain in Mexico, the ethnologist Knox exclaims, "Neither climate, nor government, nor external influences ever alter race. They may and they do affect them, and in time destroy them, but they never give rise to a new race. In half a century the dreams of Humboldt, of Canning, of Guizot, and other profound statesmen, have come to a close, and Nature once more, as I long ago predicted, a.s.serts her rights."