The mulatto and the _zambo_ are the true American hybrids. D'Orbigny believed the mestizo to be superior to the descendants of the Africans imported as slaves; Burmeister is of opinion that in the mulatto the characteristics of the negro are predominant. Ayarragaray states that the children born of the union of negroes with _zambos_ or natives are in general inferior to their parents, as much in intelligence as in physical energy. The inferior elements of the races which unite are evidently combined in their offspring. It is observed also that both in the mulattos and the _zambos_ certain internal contradictions may be noted; their will is weak and uncertain, and is dominated by instinct and gross and violent passions. Weakness of character corresponds with a turgid intelligence, incapable of profound analysis, or method, or general ideas, and a certain oratorical extravagance, a pompous rhetoric. The mulatto loves luxury and extravagance; he is servile, and lacks moral feeling. The invasion of negroes affected all the Iberian colonies, where, to replace the outrageously exploited Indian, African slaves were imported by the ingenuous evangelists {359} of the time. In Brazil, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, and Peru this caste forms a high proportion of the total population. In Brazil 15 per cent. of the population is composed of negroes, without counting the immense number of mulattos and _zambos_. Bahia is half an African city. In Rio de Janeiro the negroes of pure blood abound. In Panama the full-blooded Africans form 10 per cent. of the population. Between 1759 and 1803 642,000 negroes entered Brazil; between 1792 and 1810 Cuba received 89,000. These figures prove the formidable influence of the former slaves in modern America. But they are revenged for their enslavement in that their blood is mingled with that of their masters. Incapable of order and self-government, they are a factor of anarchy; every species of vain outer show attracts them--sonorous phraseology and ostentation. They make a show of an official function, a university title, or an academic diploma. As the Indian could not work in the tropics black immigration was directed principally upon those regions, and the enervating climate, the indiscipline of the mulatto, and the weakness of the white element have contributed to the decadence of the Equatorial nations. The mulatto is more despised than the mestizo because he often shows the abjectness of the slave and the indecision of the hybrid; he is at once servile and arrogant, envious and ambitious. His violent desire to mount to a higher social rank, to acquire wealth, power, and display, is, as Señor Bunge very justly remarks, a "hyperæsthesia of arrivism."