ardour of desire, and the most tender emotions of which our frame is susceptible sooth and agitate the soul. This description, however, applies only to those who, by their situation, are exempted from the cares and labours of life. Among persons doomed by their condition to incessant toil, the dominion of passion is less violent; their solicitude to procure subsistence, and to provide for the first demand of nature, leaves little leisure for attending to its second call. But if the nature of the intercourse between the sexes varies so much in persons of different rank in polished society, the condition of man while he remains uncivilized must occasion a variation still more apparent. We may well suppose that amidst the hardships, the dangers, and the simplicity of savage life, where subsistence is always precarious and often scanty, where men are almost continually engaged in the pursuit of their enemies or in guarding against their attacks, and where neither dress nor reserve are employed as arts of female alurement, that the attention of the Americans to their women would be extremely feeble, without imputing this solely to any physical defect or degradation in their frame.

Notwithstanding the feeble make of the Americans, hardly any of them are deformed or mutilated in any of their senses: and there is less variety in the human form throughout the New World than in the ancient continent. America contains no negroes, which is probably owing to the less degree of heat that is felt there to what the inhabitants of the torrid zone in Asia and Africa are exposed to. Still, however, there are exceptions to the general rule, and a considerable variety has been observed in three districts. In the isthmus of Darien, we are told that there are people of a low

stature, feeble frame, and of a colour that is a dead milk white: their skin is covered with a fine hairy down of a chalky white; the hair of their heads, their eye-brows, and eye lashes, are of the same hue. Their eyes are of a singular form, and so weak that they can hardly bear the light of the sun: but they see clearly by moon-light, and are most active and gay in the night.

The second district that is occupied by inhabitants differing in appearance from the other people of America is situated in a high northern latitude, extending from the coast of Labrador towards the pole as far as the country is habitable. The people scattered over those dreary regions are known to the Europeans by the name of Esquimaux. They are of a middle size and robust, with heads of a disproportioned bulk, and feet as remarkably small. Their complexion inclines to the European white rather than to the copper colour of America, and they have beards which are sometimes bushy and long. From these and other marks of distinction we may conclude that the Esquimaux are a race different from the rest of the Americans.

The inhabitants of the third district are the famous Patagonians at the southern extremity of America. They are supposed to be one of the wandering tribes that occupy the region which extends from the river De la Plata to the straits of Magellan. It has, however, been ascertained, by accurate observers, that the natives of Patagonia, though stout and well made, are not of such an extraordinary size as to be distinguished from the rest of the human species. The existence of this gigantic race of men seems then to be one of those points in natural history, with respect to which a

cautious inquirer will hesitate, and suspend his ašsent, until more complete evidence shall decide whether he ought to admit a fact seemingly incon sistent with what reason and experience have discovered, concerning the structure and condition of man, in all the various situations in which he has been observed.

In order to form a complete idea with respect to the constitution of the inhabitants of this and the other hemisphere, we should attend not only to the make and vigour of their bodies, but consider what degree of health they enjoy, and to what period of longevity they usually arrive. As most of them are unacquainted with the art of numbering, and all of them forgetful of what is past as they are improvident of what is to come, it is impossible to ascertain their age with any degree of precision. They seem, however, to be every where exempt from many of the distempers which afflict polished nations. None of the maladies which are the im. mediate offspring of luxury ever visited them; and they have no names in their languages by which to distinguish this numerous train of adventitious evils.

If

But whatever be the situation in which man is placed, he is born to suffer; and his diseases in the savage state, though fewer in number, are, like those of the animals whom he nearly resembles in his mode of life, more violent and more fatal. luxury engender and nourish distempers of one species, the rigours of savage life bring on those of another. In the savage state hardships and fatigue violently assault the constitution: in polished societies intemperance undermines it. It is not easy to determine which of them operates with most fatal effect, or tends most to abridge human life.

The influence of the former is certainly most ex* tensive. The pernicious consequences of luxury reach only to a few members in any community; the distresses of savage life are felt by all. Upon the best evidence that can be obtained, it appears that the general period of human life is shorter among savages than in well regulated and industrious societies.

II. After considering what appears to be peculiar in the bodily constitution of the Americans, we turn our attention towards the powers and qualities of their minds. As the individual advances from the ignorance and imbecility of the infant state to vigour and maturity of understanding, something similar to this may be observed in the progress of the species. With respect to it there is a period of infancy, during which several of the powers of the mind are not unfolded, and all are feeble and defective in their operation. While the condition of man is simple and rude, his reason is but little exercised, and his desires move within a narrow sphere. Hence the intellectual powers are extremely limited, his emotions and efforts are few and languid. What among polished nations is called speculative reasoning or research, is altogether unknown in the rude state of society, and never becomes the occupation or amusement of the human faculties, until man becomes so far improved as to have secured the means of subsistence, as well as the possession of leizure and tranquillity. The thoughts and attention of a savage are confined within the small circle of objects immediately conducive to his preservation or enjoyment. Every thing beyond that is perfectly indifferent to him. While they highly prize such things as serve for present use or minister to

present enjoyment, they set no value upon those which are not the object of some immediate want. When in the evening a Caribbee feels himself disposed to go to rest, no consideration will tempt him to sell his hammock: but in the morning, when he is sallying out to the business or pastime of the day, he will part with it for the slightest toy that catches his fancy. Among civilized nations arithmetic, or the art of numbering, is deemed an essential science, but among savages, who have no property to estimate, no hoarded treasures to count, no variety of objects or multiplicity of ideas to enumerate, arithmetic is a superfluous and useless art. Accordingly among some tribes in America it seems to be quite unknown. There are many that cannot reckon further than three; several can proceed as far as ten or twenty, but when they would convey an idea of any number beyond these, they point to the hairs of their head, intimating that it is equal to them, or with wonder declare it to be so great that it cannot be reckoned. In other respects the exercise of the understanding among rude nations is still more limited. The first ideas of every human being must be such as he receives by his senses. But in the mind of man, while in the savage state, there seem to be hardly any ideas but what enter by this avenue. The objects around him are presented to his eye; and such as may be subservient to his use, or can gratify any of his appetites, attract his notice; he views the rest without curioşity and attention. The active efforts of the mind are few, and on most occasions languid. The desires of simple nature are few, and where a favourable climate yields almost spontaneously what suffices to gratify them, they excite no violent emotion. Hence the people of the several tribes in