Man can long resist conditions which appear extremely unfavourable for his existence. (31. Dr. Gerland, 'Ueber das Aussterben der Naturvolker,' 1868, s. 82.) He has long lived in the extreme regions of the North, with no wood for his canoes or implements, and with only blubber as fuel, and melted snow as drink. In the southern extremity of America the Fuegians survive without the protection of clothes, or of any building worthy to be called a hovel. In South Africa the aborigines wander over arid plains, where dangerous beasts abound. Man can withstand the deadly influence of the Terai at the foot of the Himalaya, and the pestilential shores of tropical Africa.
Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race. Various checks are always in action, serving to keep down the numbers of each savage tribe,--such as periodical famines, nomadic habits and the consequent deaths of infants, prolonged suckling, wars, accidents, sickness, licentiousness, the stealing of women, infanticide, and especially lessened fertility. If any one of these checks increases in power, even slightly, the tribe thus affected tends to decrease; and when of two adjoining tribes one becomes less numerous and less powerful than the other, the contest is soon settled by war, slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and absorption. Even when a weaker tribe is not thus abruptly swept away, if it once begins to decrease, it generally goes on decreasing until it becomes extinct. (32. Gerland (ibid. s. 12) gives facts in support of this statement.)
When civilised nations come into contact with barbarians the struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives its aid to the native race. Of the causes which lead to the victory of civilised nations, some are plain and simple, others complex and obscure. We can see that the cultivation of the land will be fatal in many ways to savages, for they cannot, or will not, change their habits. New diseases and vices have in some cases proved highly destructive; and it appears that a new disease often causes much death, until those who are most susceptible to its destructive influence are gradually weeded out (33. See remarks to this effect in Sir H. Holland's 'Medical Notes and Reflections,' 1839, p. 390.); and so it may be with the evil effects from spirituous liquors, as well as with the unconquerably strong taste for them shewn by so many savages.
It further appears, mysterious as is the fact, that the first meeting of distinct and separated people generates disease. (34. I have collected ('Journal of Researches: Voyage of the "Beagle,"' p. 435) a good many cases bearing on this subject; see also Gerland, ibid. s. 8. Poeppig speaks of the "breath of civilisation as poisonous to savages.") Mr. Sproat, who in Vancouver Island closely attended to the subject of extinction, believed that changed habits of life, consequent on the advent of Europeans, induces much ill health. He lays, also, great stress on the apparently trifling cause that the natives become "bewildered and dull by the new life around them; they lose the motives for exertion, and get no new ones in their place." (35. Sproat, 'Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,' 1868, p. 284.)
The grade of their civilisation seems to be a most important element in the success of competing nations. A few centuries ago Europe feared the inroads of Eastern barbarians; now any such fear would be ridiculous. It is a more curious fact, as Mr. Bagehot has remarked, that savages did not formerly waste away before the classical nations, as they now do before modern civilised nations; had they done so, the old moralists would have mused over the event; but there is no lament in any writer of that period over the perishing barbarians. (36. Bagehot, 'Physics and Politics,' 'Fortnightly Review,' April 1, 1868, p. 455.) The most potent of all the causes of extinction, appears in many cases to be lessened fertility and ill-health, especially amongst the children, arising from changed conditions of life, notwithstanding that the new conditions may not be injurious in themselves. I am much indebted to Mr. H.H. Howorth for having called my attention to this subject, and for having given me information respecting it. I have collected the following cases.