It may, then, be inferred from this passage, either that the Europeans established in these countries have no connection with the native black women, which appears inadmissible, as we shall presently show, or that the intermixture between the two races is perfectly sterile. This latter assertion is, however, not altogether correct. True it is that the greater part of travellers make no mention whatever of hybrids of Melanesia; it is equally true that they are very rare, but still there exist some. Thus Quoy and Gaymard have seen _one_ hybrid of an European and a Tasmanian woman.[52] Mr. Gliddon, who unfortunately does not cite the source from which he has drawn his information, announces that until the year 1835, when the Tasmanians were exterminated, there were only known, in the whole of Tasmania, two adult Mulattoes.[53] This indicates either that few were born, or that they died at an early age, for the colony, founded in 1803 by a population at first almost _exclusively masculine_, had, in a few years, considerably increased by the arrival of convicts and free settlers, nearly all males. Mr. Jacquinot, after having announced that there were no hybrids in Australia, adds, “In Hobart Town, and in all Tasmania, there are no hybrids either.”[54] No other author has, to our knowledge, mentioned Tasmanian hybrids. The intermixture of the English with the native women of Australia has not been more productive. “There are scarcely,” says Jacquinot, “any Mulattoes of Australians and English mentioned.” This absence of Mulattoes between two peoples living in contact on the same soil, proves incontestably the difference of species. It may also be noticed that if such cross-breeds really existed, they would be easily recognised.[55] Mr. Lesson, who lived about two months in Sydney and its environs, and who made several excursions among the natives, mentions only one cross-breed, the offspring of a white man and the wife of a chief named Bongari.[56] Cunningham, a great defender of the Australian race--which, by the way, has finished by killing, and it is even said eating him--has written two volumes on New South Wales, in which neither directly nor indirectly is there mention made of more than one single Mulatto, and it happens that this single Mulatto is precisely the same of whom Mr. Lesson speaks.[57] No statistical writer, nor any historian, enumerates cross-breeds among the Australian population. No where, nevertheless, are the classes of society more numerous and more distinct. The officials, the colonists born in Europe, the colonists born in Australia, the convicts, the emancipated, the descendants of convicts, etc.; form as many classes envious of and despising each other, they dispute their respective privileges, and give each other more or less picturesque nick names. There are sterlings, currencies,[58] the legitimate, the illegitimate,[59] the pure Merinos, the convicts, the titled, the untitled, the canaries, the