due both to outside influence and to internal development; but in the
main retaining, especially in the last instance, the general race
characteristics.

It was quite otherwise in the countries conquered by Cortes, Pizarro,
and their successors. Instead of killing or driving off the natives as
the English did, the Spaniards simply sat down in the midst of a much
more numerous aboriginal population. The process by which Central and
South America became Spanish bore very close resemblance to the
process by which the lands of southeastern Europe were turned into
Romance-speaking countries. The bulk of the original inhabitants
remained unchanged in each case. There was little displacement of
population. Roman soldiers and magistrates, Roman merchants and
handicraftsmen were thrust in among the Celtic and Iberian peoples,
exactly as the Spanish military and civil rulers, priests, traders,
land-owners, and mine-owners settled down among the Indians of Peru
and Mexico. By degrees, in each case, the many learnt the language and
adopted the laws, religion, and governmental system of the few,
although keeping certain of their own customs and habits of thought.
Though the ordinary Spaniard of to-day speaks a Romance dialect, he is
mainly of Celto-Iberian blood; and though most Mexicans and Peruvians
speak Spanish, yet the great majority of them trace their descent back
to the subjects of Montezuma and the Incas. Moreover, exactly as in
Europe little ethnic islands of Breton and Basque stock have remained
unaffected by the Romance flood, so in America there are large
communities where the inhabitants keep unchanged the speech and the
customs of their Indian forefathers.

The English-speaking peoples now hold more and better land than any
other American nationality or set of nationalities. They have in their