AMERICA

AMERICA (from Americus Vespucius, falsely said to be the first discoverer of the continent); one of the four quarters of the world, probably the largest of the whole, and from its late discovery frequently denominated the New World.

Boundaries. This vast country extends from the 80th degree of north, to the 56th degree of south latitude; and, where its breadth is known, from the 35th to the 136th degree west longitude from London; stretching between 8000 and 9000 miles in length, and in its greatest breadth 3690. It sees both hemispheres, has two summers and a double winter, and enjoys all the variety of climates which the earth affords. It is washed by the two great oceans. To the eastward it has the Atlantic, which divides it from Europe and Africa; to the west it has the Pacific or Great South sea, by which it is separated from Asia. By these seas it may, and does, carry on a direct commerce with the other three parts of the world.

North and South continent. America is not of equal breadth throughout its whole extent; but is divided into two great continents, called North and South America, by an isthmus 1500 miles long, and which at Darien, about Lat. 9° N. is only 60 miles over. This isthmus forms with the northern and southern continents, a vast gulf, in which lie a great number of islands, called the West Indies, in contradistinction to the eastern parts of Asia, which are called the East Indies.

Remarkable prevalence of cold. Between the New World and the Old, there are several very striking differences; but the most remarkable is the general predominance of cold throughout the whole extent of America. Though we cannot, in any country, determine the precise degree of heat merely by the distance of the equator, because the elevation above the sea, the nature of the soil, &c. affect the climate; yet, in the ancient continent, the heat is much more in proportion to the vicinity to the equator than in any part of America. Here the rigour of the frigid zone extends over half that which should be temperate by its position. Even in those latitudes where the winter is scarcely felt on the old continent, it reigns with great severity in America, though during a short period. Nor does this cold, prevalent in the new world, confine itself to the temperate zones; but extends its influence to the torrid zone also, considerably mitigating the excess of its heat. Along the eastern coast, the

climate, though more similar to that of the torrid zone in other parts of the earth, is nevertheless considerably milder than in those countries of Asia and Africa which lie in the same latitude. From the southern tropic to the extremity of the American continent, the cold is said to be much greater than in parallel northern latitudes even of America itself.

For this so remarkable difference between the climate of the new continent and the old, various causes have been assigned by different authors. The following is the opinion of the learned Dr Robertson on this subject. "Though the utmost extent of America towards the north be not yet discovered, we know that it advances nearer to the pole than either Europe or Asia. The latter have large seas to the north, which are open during part of the year; and, even when covered with ice, the wind that blows over them is less intensely cold than that which blows over land in the same latitudes. But, in America, the land stretches from the river St Lawrence towards the pole, and spreads out immensely to the west. A chain of enormous mountains, covered with snow and ice, runs through all this dreary region. The wind passing over such an extent of high and frozen land, becomes so impregnated with cold, that it acquires a piercing keenness, which it retains in its progress through warmer climates; and is not entirely mitigated until it reach the gulf of Mexico. Over all the continent of North America, a north-westerly wind and excessive cold are synonymous terms. Even in the most sultry weather, the moment that the wind veers to that quarter, its penetrating influence is felt in a transition from heat to cold no less violent than sudden. To this powerful cause we may ascribe the extraordinary dominion of cold, and its violent invasions into the southern provinces in that part of the globe.

"Other causes, no less remarkable, diminish the active power of heat in those parts of the American continent which lie between the tropics. In all that portion of the globe, the wind blows in an invariable direction from east to west. As this wind holds its course across the ancient continent, it arrives at the countries which stretch along the western shore of Africa, inflamed with all the fiery particles which it hath collected from the sultry plains of Asia, and the burning sands in the African deserts. The coast of Africa is accordingly

ingly the region of the earth which feels the most fervent heat, and is exposed to the unmitigated ardour of the torrid zone. But this same wind, which brings such an accession of warmth to the countries lying between the river of Senegal and Caffraria, traverses the Atlantic ocean before it reaches the American shore. It is cooled in its passage over this vast body of water; and is felt as a refreshing gale along the coasts of Brasil and Guiana, rendering those countries, though amongst the warmest in America, temperate, when compared with those which lie opposite to them in Africa. As this wind advances in its course across America, it meets with immense plains covered with impenetrable forests; or occupied by large rivers, marshes, and stagnating waters, where it can recover no considerable degree of heat. At length it arrives at the Andes, which run from north to south through the whole continent. In passing over their elevated and frozen summits, it is so thoroughly cooled, that the greater part of the countries beyond them hardly feel the ardour to which they seem exposed by their situation. In the other provinces of America, from Terra Firmita westward to the Mexican empire, the heat of the climate is tempered, in some places, by the elevation of the land above the sea; in others, by their extraordinary humidity; and in all, by the enormous mountains scattered over this tract. The islands of America in the torrid zone are either small or mountainous, and are fanned alternately by refreshing sea and land breezes.

"The causes of the extraordinary cold towards the southern limits of America, and in the seas beyond it, cannot be ascertained in a manner equally satisfying. It was long supposed, that a vast continent, distinguished by the name of Terra Australis Incognita, lay between the southern extremity of America and the antarctic pole. The same principles which account for the extraordinary degree of cold in the northern regions of America, were employed in order to explain that which is felt at Cape Horn and the adjacent countries. The immense extent of the southern continent, and the rivers which it poured into the ocean, were mentioned and admitted by philosophers as causes sufficient to occasion the unusual sensation of cold, and the still more uncommon appearances of frozen seas in that region of the globe. But the imaginary continent to which such influence was ascribed having been searched for in vain, and the space which it was supposed to occupy having been found to be an open sea, new conjectures must be formed with respect to the causes of a temperature of climate, so extremely different from that which we experience in countries removed at the same distance from the opposite pole.

"The most obvious and probable cause of this superior degree of cold towards the southern extremity of America, seems to be the form of the continent there. Its breadth gradually decreases as it stretches from St Antonio southwards; and from the bay of St Julian to the straits of Magellan its dimensions are much contracted. On the east and west sides, it is washed by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. From its southern point, it is probable that an open sea stretches to the antarctic pole. In whichever of these directions the wind blows, it is cooled before it approaches the Magellanic regions, by passing over a vast body of water; nor is the land there of such extent, that it can

recover any considerable degree of heat in its progress over it. These circumstances concur in rendering the temperature of the air in this district of America more similar to that of an insular, than to that of a continental climate; and hinder it from acquiring the same degree of summer heat with places in Europe and Asia, in a corresponding northern latitude. The north wind is the only one that reaches this part of America, after blowing over a great continent. But, from an attentive survey of its position, this will be found to have a tendency rather to diminish than augment the degree of heat. The southern extremity of America is properly the termination of the immense ridge of the Andes, which stretches nearly in a direct line from north to south, through the whole extent of the continent. The most sultry regions in South America, Guiana, Brasil, Paraguay, and Tucuman, lie many degrees to the east of the Magellanic regions. The level country of Peru, which enjoys the tropical heats, is situated considerably to the west of them. The north wind, then, though it blows over land, does not bring to the southern extremity of America an increase of heat collected in its passage over torrid regions; but, before it arrives there, it must have swept along the summits of the Andes, and become impregnated with the cold of that frozen region."

Another particularity in the climate of America, is ⁵Extreme its excessive moisture in general. In some places, in ^{moisture of the Ameri-} deed, on the western coast, rain is not known; but, in ^{can climate.} all other parts, the moistness of the climate is as remarkable as the cold. The forests wherewith it is everywhere covered, no doubt, partly occasion the moisture of its climate; but the most prevalent cause is the vast quantity of water in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, with which America is environed on all sides. Hence those places where the continent is narrowest are deluged with almost perpetual rains, accompanied with violent thunder and lightning, by which some of them, particularly Porto Bello, are rendered in a manner uninhabitable.

This extreme moisture of the American climate is ⁶Large ri- productive of much larger rivers there than in any vers, and other part of the world. The Danube, the Nile, the ^{excessive luxuriance of vegetation.} Indus, or the Ganges, are not comparable to the Mississippi, the river St Lawrence, or that of the Amazons; nor are such large lakes to be found anywhere as those which North America affords. To the same cause we are also partly to ascribe the excessive luxuriance of all kinds of vegetables in almost all parts of this country. In the southern provinces, where the moisture of the climate is aided by the warmth of the sun, the woods are almost impervious, and the surface of the ground is hid from the eye, under a thick covering of shrubs, herbs, and seeds. In the northern provinces, the forests are not encumbered with the same luxuriance of vegetation; nevertheless, they afford trees much larger of their kind than what are to be found anywhere else.

From the coldness and the moisture of America, an ⁷Malignity extreme malignity of climate has been inferred, and as- ^{of climate} serted by M. de Paw, in his Recherches Philosophiques. ^{unjustly ascribed to America.} Hence, according to his hypothesis, the smallness and irregularity of the nobler animals, and the size and enormous multiplication of reptiles and insects.

But the supposed smallness and less ferocity of the American

American animals, the Abbé Clavigero observes, instead of the malignity, demonstrate the mildness and bounty of the climate, if we give credit to Buffon, at whose fountain M. de Paw has drunk, and of whose testimony he has availed himself against Don Pernetty: Buffon, who in many places of his Natural History produces the smallness of the American animals as a certain argument of the malignity of the climate of America, in treating afterwards of savage animals, in tom. ii. speaks thus: "As all things, even the most free creatures, are subject to natural laws, and animals as well as men are subjected to the influence of climate and soil, it appears that the same causes which have civilized and polished the human species in our climates, may have likewise produced similar effects upon other species. The wolf, which is perhaps the fiercest of all the quadrupeds of the temperate zone, is however incomparably less terrible than the tyger, the lion, and the panther, of the torrid zone; and the white bear and hyena of the frigid zone. In America, where the air and the earth are more mild than those of Africa, the tyger, the lion, and the panther, are not terrible but in the name. They have degenerated, if fierceness, joined to cruelty, made their nature; or, to speak more properly, they have only suffered the influence of the climate: under a milder sky, their nature also has become more mild. From climates which are immoerate in their temperature, are obtained drugs, perfumes, poisons, and all those plants whose qualities are strong. The temperate earth, on the contrary, produces only things which are temperate; the mildest herbs, the most wholesome pulse, the sweetest fruits, the most quiet animals, and the most humane men, are the natives of this happy climate. As the earth makes the plants, the earth and plants make animals; the earth, the plants, and the animals, make man. The physical qualities of man, and the animals which feed on other animals, depend, though more remotely, on the same causes which influence their dispositions and customs. This is the greatest proof and demonstration, that in temperate climates every thing becomes temperate, and that in intemperate climates every thing is excessive; and that size and form, which appear fixed and determinate qualities, depend, notwithstanding, like the relative qualities, on the influence of climate. The size of our quadrupeds cannot be compared with that of an elephant, the rhinoceros, or sea horse. The largest of our birds are but small, if compared with the ostrich, the condore, and casuar." So far M. Buffon, whose text we have copied, because it is contrary to what M. de Paw writes against the climate of America, and to Buffon himself in many other places.

If the large and fierce animals are natives of intemperate climates, and small and tranquil animals of temperate climates, as M. Buffon has here established; if mildness of climate influences the disposition and customs of animals, M. de Paw does not well deduce the malignity of the climate of America from the smaller size and less fierceness of its animals; he ought rather to have deduced the gentleness and sweetness of its climate from this antecedent. If, on the contrary, the smaller size and less fierceness of the American animals, with respect to those of the old continent, are a proof of their degeneracy, arising from the malignity of the climate, as M. de Paw would have it, we ought in like

manner to argue the malignity of the climate of Europe from the smaller size and less fierceness of its animals, compared with those of Africa. If a philosopher of the country of Guinea should undertake a work in imitation of M. de Paw, with this title, Recherches Philosophiques sur les Européens, he might avail himself of the same argument which M. de Paw uses, to demonstrate the malignity of the climate of Europe, and the advantages of that of Africa. The climate of Europe, he would say, is very unfavourable to the production of quadrupeds, which are found incomparably smaller, and more cowardly than ours. What are the horse and the ox, the largest of its animals, compared with our elephants, our rhinoceroses, our sea horses, and our camels? What are its lizards, either in size or intrepidity, compared with our crocodiles? its wolves, its bears, the most dreadful of its wild beasts, when beside our lions and tygers? Its eagles, its vultures, and cranes, if compared with our ostriches, appear only like hens.

As to the enormous size and prodigious multiplication of the insects and other little noxious animals, "The surface of the earth (says M. de Paw), infected by putrefaction, was overrun with lizards, serpents, reptiles, and insects monstrous for size, and the activity of their poison, which they drew from the copious juices of this uncultivated soil, that was corrupted and abandoned to itself, where the nutritive juice became sharp, like the milk in the breast of animals which do not exercise the virtue of propagation. Caterpillars, crabs, butterflies, beetles, spiders, frogs, and toads, were for the most part of an enormous corpulence in the species, and multiplied beyond what can be imagined. Panama is infested with serpents, Carthage with clouds of enormous bats, Porto Bello with toads, Surinam with katerlacas, or cuaracaras, Guadalupe, and the other colonies of the islands, with beetles, Quito with niguas or chegoes, and Lima with lice and bugs. The ancient kings of Mexico, and the emperors of Peru, found no other means of ridding their subjects of those insects which fed upon them, than the imposition of an annual tribute of a certain quantity of lice. Ferdinand Cortes found bags full of them in the palace of Montezuma." But this argument, exaggerated as it is, proves nothing against the climate of America in general, much less against that of Mexico. There being some lands in America, in which, on account of their heat, humidity, or want of inhabitants, large insects are found, and excessively multiplied, will prove at most, that in some places the surface of the earth is infected, as he says, with putrefaction; but not that the soil of Mexico, or that of all America, is stinking, uncultivated, vitiated, and abandoned to itself. If such a deduction were just, M. de Paw might also say, that the soil of the old continent is barren, and stinks; as in many countries of it there are prodigious multitudes of monstrous insects, noxious reptiles, and vile animals, as in the Philippine isles, in many of those of the Indian archipelago, in several countries of the south of Asia, in many of Africa, and even in some of Europe. The Philippine isles are infested with enormous ants and monstrous butterflies, Japan with scorpions, the south of Asia and Africa with serpents, Egypt with asps, Guinea and Ethiopia with armies of ants, Holland with field rats, Ukraine with toads,

America. as M. de Paw himself affirms; in Italy, the Campagna di Roma (although peopled for so many ages) with vipers, Calabria with tarantulas, the shores of the Adriatic sea with clouds of gnats; and even in France, the population of which is so great and so ancient, whose lands are so well cultivated, and whose climate is so celebrated by the French, there appeared, a few years ago, according to M. Buffon, a new species of field mice, larger than the common kind, called by him surmulots, which have multiplied exceedingly, to the great damage of the fields. M. Bazin, in his Compendium of the History of Insects, numbers 77 species of bugs which are all found in Paris and its neighbourhood. That large capital, as M. Bonare says, swarms with those disgusting insects. It is true, that there are places in America, where the multitude of insects and filthy vermine make life irksome; but we do not know that they have arrived to such excess of multiplication as to depopulate any place, at least there cannot be so many examples produced of this cause of depopulation in the new as in the old continent, which are attested by Theophrastus, Varro, Pliny, and other authors. The frogs depopulated one place in Gaul, and the locusts another in Africa. One of the Cyclades was depopulated by mice; Amiclas, near to Taracina, by serpents; another place, near to Ethiopia, by scorpions and poisonous ants; and another by scolopendras: and not so distant from our own times, the Mauritius was going to have been abandoned on account of the extraordinary multiplication of rats, as we can remember to have read in a French author.

With respect to the size of the insects, reptiles, and such animals, M. de Paw makes use of the testimony of M. Dumont, who, in his Memoirs on Louisiana, says, that the frogs are so large there that they weigh 37 French pounds, and their horrid croaking imitates the bellowing of cows. But M. de Paw himself says (in his answer to Don Pernetty, cap. 17.), that all those who have written about Louisiana, from Henepin, Le Clerc, and Cav. Tonti, to Dumont, have contradicted each other, sometimes on one and sometimes on another subject. In fact, neither in the old or the new continent are there frogs of 37 pounds in weight; but there are in Asia and Africa serpents, butterflies, ants, and other animals, of such monstrous size, that they exceed all those which have been discovered in the new world. We know very well, that some American historians say, that a certain gigantic species of serpents is to be found in the woods, which attract men with their breath, and swallow them up; but we know also, that several historians, both ancient and modern, report the same thing of the serpents of Asia, and even something more. Megasthenes, cited by Pliny, said, that there were serpents found in Asia, so large, that they swallowed entire stags and bulls. Metrodorus cited by the same author, affirms, that in Asia there were serpents which, by their breath, attracted birds, however high they were, or quick their flight. Among the moderns, Gemelli, in vol. v. of his Tour of the World, when he treats of the animals of the Philippine isles, speaks thus: There are serpents in these islands of immoderate size; there is one called ibitin, very long, which suspending itself by the tail from the trunk of a tree, waits till stags, bears, and

also men pass by, in order to attract them with its breath, and devour them at once entirely: from whence it is evident, that this very ancient fable has been common to both continents.

Further, it may be asked, In what country of America could M. de Paw find ants to equal those of the Philippine islands, called salum, respecting which Hernandez affirms, that they were six fingers breadth in length and one in breadth? Who has ever seen in America butterflies so large as those of Bourbon, Ternate, the Philippine isles, and all the Indian Archipelago? The largest bat of America (native to hot shady countries), which is that called by Buffon vampiro, is, according to him, of the size of a pigeon. La roussette, one of the species of Asia, is as large as a raven; and the roussette, another species of Asia, is as big as a large hen. Its wings, when extended, measure from tip to tip three Parisian feet, and according to Gemelli, who measured it in the Philippine isles, six palms. M. Buffon acknowledges the excess in size of the Asiatic bat over the American species, but denies it as to number. Gemelli says, that those of the island of Luzon were so numerous that they darkened the air, and that the noise which they made with their teeth, in eating the fruits of the woods, was heard at the distance of two miles. M. de Paw says, in talking of serpents, "It cannot be affirmed that the new world has shown any serpents larger than those which Mr. Andanson saw in the deserts of Africa." The greatest serpent found in Mexico, after a diligent search made by Hernandez, was 18 feet long; but this is not to be compared with that of the Moluccas, which Bonare says is 33 feet in length; nor with the anaconda of Ceylon, which the same author says is more than 33 feet long; nor with others of Asia and Africa mentioned by the same author. Lastly, The argument drawn from the multitude and size of the American insects is fully as weighty as the argument drawn from the smallness and scarcity of quadrupeds, and both detect the same ignorance, or rather the same voluntary and stupid forgetfulness, of the things of the old continent.

With respect to what M. de Paw has said of the tribute of lice in Mexico, in that as well as in many other things he discovers his ridiculous credulity. It is true that Cortes found bags of lice in the magazines of the palace of King Axajacatil. It is also true, that Montezuma imposed such a tribute, not on all his subjects, however, but only on those who were beggars; not on account of the extraordinary multitude of those insects, as M. de Paw affirms, but because Montezuma, who could not suffer idleness in his subjects, resolved that that miserable set of people, who could not labour, should at least be occupied in lousing themselves. This was the true reason of such an extravagant tribute, as Turquemada, Betancourt, and other historians relate; and nobody ever before thought of that which M. de Paw affirms, merely because it suited his preposterous system. Those disgusting insects possibly abound as much in the hair and clothes of American beggars as of any poor and uncleanly low people in the world: but there is not a doubt, that if any sovereign of Europe was to exact such a tribute from the poor in his dominions, not only bags, but great vessels, might be filled with them.

At the time America was discovered, it was found inhabited

America. inhabited by a race of men no less different from those in the other parts of the world, than the climate and natural productions of this continent are different from those of Europe, Asia, or Africa. One great peculiarity in the native Americans is their colour, and the identity of it throughout the whole extent of the continent. In Europe and Asia, the people who inhabit the northern countries are of a fairer complexion than those who dwell more to the southward. In the torrid zone, both in Africa and Asia, the natives are entirely black, or the next thing to it. This, however, must be understood with some limitation. The people of Lapland, who inhabit the most northerly part of Europe, are by no means so fair as the inhabitants of Britain; nor are the Tartars so fair as the inhabitants of Europe who lie under the same parallels of latitude. Nevertheless, a Laplander is fair when compared with an Abyssinian, and a Tartar, if compared with a native of the Molucca islands. In America, this distinction of colour was not to be found. In the torrid zone there were no negroes, and in the temperate and frigid zones there were no white people. All of them were of a kind of red copper colour, which Mr Forster observed, in the Pefferays of Terra del Fuego, to have something of a gloss resembling that metal. It doth not appear, however, that this matter hath ever been inquired into with sufficient accuracy. The inhabitants of the inland parts of South America, where the continent is widest, and consequently the influence of the sun the most powerful, have never been compared with those of Canada, or more northerly parts, at least by any person of credit. Yet this ought to have been done, and that in many instances too, before it could be asserted so positively as most authors do, that there is not the least difference of complexion among the natives of America. Indeed, so many systems have been formed concerning them, that it is very difficult to obtain a true knowledge of the most simple facts. If we may believe the Abbé Raynal, the Californians are swarther than the Mexicans; and so positive is he in his opinion, that he gives a reason for it. "This difference of colour," says he, "proves, that the civilized life of society subverts, or totally changes, the order and laws of nature, since we find, under the temperate zone, a savage people that are blacker than the civilized nations of the torrid zone." — On the other hand, Dr Robertson classes all the inhabitants of Spanish America together with regard to colour, whether they are civilized or uncivilized; and when he speaks of California, takes no notice of any peculiarity in their colour more than others. The general appearance of the indigenous Americans in various districts is thus described by the Chevalier Pinto: "They are all of a copper colour, with some diversity of shade, not in proportion to their distance from the equator, but according to the degree of elevation of the territory in which they reside. Those who live in a high country are fairer than those in the marshy low lands on the coast. Their face is round; farther removed, perhaps, than that of any people from an oval shape. Their forehead is small; the extremity of their ears far from the face; their lips thick; their nose flat; their eyes black, or of a chestnut colour, small, but capable of discerning objects at a great distance. Their hair is always thick and sleek, and without any tendency to curl. At the first aspect, a South American

appears to be mild and innocent: but, on a more attentive view, one discovers in his countenance something wild, distrustful, and sullen."

The following account of the native Americans is Don Ulloa's given by Don Antonio Ulloa, in a work entitled Mémoires philosophiques, historiques, et physiques, concernant la découverte de l'Amérique, lately published.

The American Indians are naturally of a colour bordering upon red. Their frequent exposure to the sun and wind changes it to their ordinary dusky hue. The temperature of the air appears to have little or no influence in this respect. There is no perceptible difference in complexion between the inhabitants of the high and those of the low parts of Peru; yet the climates are of extreme difference. Nay, the Indians who live as far as 40 degrees and upwards south or north of the equator, are not to be distinguished, in point of colour, from those immediately under it.

There is also a general conformation of features and person, which more or less characterizes them all. Their chief distinctions, in these respects, are a small forehead, partly covered with hair to the eyebrows, little eyes; the nose thin, pointed, and bent towards the upper lip; a broad face; large ears; black, thick, and lank hair; the legs well formed, the feet small, the body thick and muscular; little or no beard on the face, and that little never extending beyond a small part of the chin and upper lip. It may easily be supposed that this general description cannot apply, in all its parts, to every individual; but all of them partake so much of it, that they may be easily distinguished even from the mulattoes, who come nearest to them in point of colour.

The resemblance among all the American tribes is not less remarkable in respect to their genius, character, manners, and particular customs. The most distant tribes are, in these respects, as similar as though they formed but one nation.

All the Indian nations have a peculiar pleasure in painting their bodies of a red colour, with a certain species of earth. The mine of Guancavelica was formerly of no other use than to supply them with this material for dyeing their bodies; and the cinnabar extracted from it was applied entirely to this purpose. The tribes in Louisiana and Canada have the same passion; hence minium is the commodity most in demand there.

It may seem singular that these nations, whose natural colour is red, should affect the same colour as an artificial ornament. But it may be observed, that they do nothing in this respect but what corresponds to the practice of Europeans, who also study to heighten and display to advantage the natural red and white of their complexions. The Indians of Peru have now indeed abandoned the custom of painting their bodies: but it was common among them before they were conquered by the Spaniards; and it still remains the custom of all those tribes who have preserved their liberty. The northern nations of America, besides the red colour which is predominant, employ also black, white, blue, and green, in painting their bodies.

The adjustment of these colours is a matter of great consideration with the Indians of Louisiana and the vast regions extending to the north, as the ornaments of dress among the most polished nations. The dress, businets

America. business itself they call mactacher, and they do not fail to apply all their talents and assiduity to accomplish it in the most finished manner. No lady of the greatest fashion ever consulted her mirror with more anxiety, than the Indians do while painting their bodies. The colours are applied with the utmost accuracy and address. Upon the eyelids, precisely at the root of the eyelashes, they draw two lines as fine as the smallest thread; the same upon the lips, the openings of the nostrils, the eyebrows, and the ears; of which last they even follow all the inflexions and sinuities. As to the rest of the face, they distribute various figures, in all which the red predominates, and the other colours are assorted so as to throw it out to the best advantage. The neck also receives its proper ornaments; a thick coat of vermilion commonly distinguishes the cheeks. Five or six hours are requisite for accomplishing all this with the meety which they affect. As their first attempts do not always succeed to their wish, they efface them, and begin anew upon a better plan. No coquette is more fastidious in her choice of ornament, none more vain when the important adjustment is finished. Their delight and self-satisfaction are then so great, that the mirror is hardly ever laid down. An Indian mactached to his mind is the vainest of all the human species. The other parts of the body are left in their natural state, and, excepting what is called a cahecul, they go entirely naked.

Such of them as have made themselves eminent for bravery, or other qualifications, are distinguished by figures painted on their bodies. They introduce the colours by making punctures on their skin, and the extent of surface which this ornament covers is proportioned to the exploits they have performed. Some paint only their arms, others both their arms and legs, others again their thighs; while those who have attained the summit of warlike renown, have their bodies painted from the waist upwards. This is the heraldry of the Indians; the devices of which are probably more exactly adjusted to the merits of the persons who bear them than those of more civilized countries.

Besides these ornaments, the warriors also carry plumes of feathers on their heads, their arms, and ankles. These likewise are tokens of valour, and none but such as have been thus distinguished may wear them.

The propensity to indolence is equal among all the tribes of Indians, civilized or savage. The only employment of those who have preserved their independence is hunting and fishing. In some districts the women exercise a little agriculture in raising Indian corn and pompions, of which they form a species of aliment by bruising them together: they also prepare the ordinary beverage in use among them, taking care, at the same time, of the children, of whom the fathers take no charge.

The female Indians of all the conquered regions of South America practise what is called the urew (a word which among them signifies elevation). It consists in throwing forward the hair from the crown of the head upon the brow, and cutting it round from the ears to above the eye; so that the forehead and eyebrows are entirely covered. The same custom takes place in the northern countries. The female inhabitants of both regions tie the rest of their hair behind, so exactly in the same fashion, that it might be supposed the ef-

fect of mutual imitation. This, however, being impossible, from the vast distance that separates them, is thought to countenance the supposition of the whole of America being originally planted with one race of people.

This custom does not take place among the males. Those of the higher parts of Peru wear long and flowing hair, which they reckon a great ornament. In the lower parts of the same country they cut it short, on account of the heat of the climate; a circumstance in which they imitate the Spaniards. The inhabitants of Louisiana pluck out their hair by the roots from the crown of the head forwards, in order to obtain a large forehead, otherwise denied them by nature. The rest of their hair they cut as short as possible, to prevent their enemies from seizing them by it in battle, and also to prevent them from easily getting their scalp, should they fall into their hands as prisoners.

The whole race of American Indians is distinguished by thickness of skin and hardness of fibres; circumstances which probably contribute to that insensibility to bodily pain for which they are remarkable. An instance of this insensibility occurred in an Indian who was under the necessity of submitting to be cut for the stone. This operation, in ordinary cases, seldom lasts above four or five minutes. Unfavourable circumstances in his case prolonged it to the uncommon period of 27 minutes. Yet all this time the patient gave no tokens of the extreme pain commonly attending this operation: he complained only as a person does who feels some slight uneasiness. At last the stone was extracted. Two days after, he expressed a desire for food, and on the eighth day from the operation he quitted his bed, free from pain, although the wound was not yet thoroughly closed. The same want of sensibility is observed in cases of fractures, wounds, and other accidents of a similar nature. In all these cases their cure is easily effected, and they seem to suffer less present pain than any other race of men. The skulls that have been taken up in their ancient burying-grounds are of a greater thickness than that bone is commonly found, being from six to seven lines from the outer to the inner superficies. The same is remarkable as to the thickness of their skins.

It is natural to infer from hence, that their comparative insensibility to pain is owing to a coarser and stronger organization than that of other nations. The ease with which they endure the severities of climate is another proof of this. The inhabitants of the higher parts of Peru live amidst perpetual frost and snow. Although their clothing is very slight, they support and to the this inclement temperature without the least inconvenience. Habit, it is to be confessed, may contribute a good deal to this, but much also is to be ascribed to the compact texture of their skin, which defends them from the impression of cold through their pores.

The northern Indians resemble them in this respect. The utmost rigours of the winter season do not prevent them from following the chase almost naked. It is true, they wear a kind of woollen cloak, or sometimes the skin of a wild beast, upon their shoulders; but besides that it covers only a small part of their body, it would appear that they use it rather for ornament than warmth. In fact, they wear it indiscriminately, in the severities of winter and in the most sultry heats of summer.

¹⁴ America. summer, when neither Europeans nor Negroes can suffer any but the slightest clothing. They even frequently throw aside this cloak when they go a hunting, that it may not embarrass them in traversing their forests, where they say the thorns and undergrowth would take hold of it; while, on the contrary, they slide smoothly over the surface of their naked bodies. At all times they go with their heads uncovered, without suffering the least inconvenience, either from the cold, or from those coups de soleil, which in Louisiana are so often fatal to the inhabitants of other climates.

The Indians of South America distinguish themselves by modern dresses, in which they affect various talles. Those of the high country, and of the valleys in Peru, dress partly in the Spanish fashion. Instead of hats they wear bonnets of coarse double cloth, the weight of which neither seems to inconvenience them when they go to warmer climates, nor does the accidental want of them seem to be felt in situations where the most piercing cold reigns. Their legs and feet are always bare, if we except a sort of sandals made of the skins of oxen. The inhabitants of South America, compared with those of North America, are described as generally more feeble in their frame, less vigorous in the efforts of their mind, of gentler dispositions, more addicted to pleasure, and sunk in indolence. This, however, is not universally the case. Many of their nations are as intrepid and enterprising as any others on the whole continent. Among the tribes on the banks of the Oronoko, if a warrior aspires to the post of captain, his probation begins with a long fast, more rigid than any ever observed by the most abstemious hermit. At the close of this the chiefs assemble; and each gives him three lashes with a large whip, applied so vigorously, that his body is almost flayed. If he betrays the least symptom of impatience, or even of sensibility, he is disgraced for ever, and rejected as unworthy of the honour. After some interval, his constancy is proved by a more excruciating trial. He is laid in his hammock with his hands bound fast; and an innumerable multitude of venomous ants, whose bite occasions a violent pain and inflammation, are thrown upon him. The judges of his merit stand around the hammock; and whilst these cruel insects fasten upon the most sensible parts of his body, a sigh, a groan, or an involuntary motion expressive of what he suffers, would exclude him from the dignity of which he is ambitious. Even after this evidence, his fortitude is not deemed to be sufficiently ascertained, till he has stood another test more severe, if possible, than the former. He is again suspended in his hammock, and covered with the leaves of the palmetto. A fire of stinking herbs is kindled underneath, so as he may feel its heat, and be involved in smoke. Though scorched and almost suffocated, he must continue to endure this with the same patient insensibility. Many perish in this essay of their firmness and courage; but such as go through it with applause, receive the emblems of their new dignity with much solemnity, and are ever after regarded as leaders of approved resolution, whose behaviour, in the most trying situations, will do honour to their country. In North America, the previous trial of a warrior is neither so formal nor so severe: Though, even there, before a youth is permitted to bear arms, his patience and fortitude are proved by

blows, by fire, and by insults, more intolerable to a hughty spirit than either.

Of the manners and customs of the North Americans more particularly, the following is the most consistent account that can be collected from the best in-¹⁵ tions of the North Americans more particularly.

When the Europeans first arrived in America, they found the Indians quite naked, except those parts which even the most uncultivated people usually conceal. Since that time, however, they generally use a coarse blanket, which they buy of the neighbouring planters.

Their huts or cabins are made of stakes of wood driven into the ground, and covered with branches of trees or reeds. They lie on the floor either on mats or the skins of wild beasts. Their dishes are of timber; but their spoons are made of the skulls of wild oxen, and their knives of flint. A kettle and a large plate constitute almost the whole utensils of the family. Their diet consists chiefly in what they procure by hunting; and sago-mite, or potage, is likewise one of their most common kinds of food. The most honourable furniture amongst them are the scalps of their enemies; with those they ornament their huts, which are esteemed in proportion to the number of this sort of spoils.

The character of the Indians is altogether founded upon their circumstances and way of life. A people who are constantly employed in procuring the means of a precarious subsistence, who live by hunting the wild animals, and who are generally engaged in war with their neighbours, cannot be supposed to enjoy much gaiety of temper, or a high flow of spirits. The Indians therefore are in general grave even to sadness: Their re-¹⁶ they have nothing of that giddy vivacity peculiar to markable some nations of Europe, and they despise it. Their pen-¹⁶ siveness and taciturnity. behaviour to those about them is regular, modest, and respectful. Ignorant of the arts of amusement, of which that of saying trifles agreeably is one of the most considerable, they never speak, but when they have something important to observe; and all their actions, words, and even looks, are attended with some meaning. This is extremely natural to men who are almost continually engaged in pursuits which to them are of the highest importance. Their subsistence depends entirely on what they procure with their hands; and their lives, their honour, and every thing dear to them, may be lost by the smallest inattention to the designs of their enemies. As they have no particular object to attach them to one place rather than another, they fly wherever they expect to find the necessaries of life in greatest abundance. Cities, which are the effects of agriculture and arts, they have none. The different tribes or nations are for the same reason extremely small, when compared with civilized societies, in which industry, arts, agriculture, and commerce, have united a vast number of individuals, whom a complicated luxury renders useful to one another. These small tribes live at an immense distance; they are separated by a desert frontier, and hid in the bosom of impenetrable and almost boundless forests.

There is established in each society a certain species of government, which over the whole continent of America prevails with exceeding little variation; because over the whole of this continent the manners and way

America. of life are nearly similar and uniform. Without arts, riches, or luxury, the great instruments of subjection in polished societies, an American has no method by which he can render himself considerable among his companions, but by superiority in personal qualities of body or mind. But as Nature has not been very lavish in her personal distinctions, where all enjoy the same education, all are pretty much equal, and will desire to remain so. Liberty, therefore, is the prevailing passion of the Americans; and their government, under the influence of this sentiment, is better secured than by the wisest political regulations. They are very far, however, from despising all sort of authority; they are attentive to the voice of wisdom, which experience has conferred on the aged, and they enlist under the banners of the chief in whose valour and military address they have learned to repose their confidence. In every society, therefore, there is to be considered the power of the chief and of the elders; and, according as the government inclines more to the one or to the other, it may be regarded as monarchical, or as a species of aristocracy. Among those tribes which are most engaged in war, the power of the chief is naturally predominant; because the idea of having a military leader was the first source of his superiority, and the continual exigencies of the state requiring such a leader, will continue to support, and even to enhance it. His power, however, is rather persuasive than coercive; he is reverenced as a father, rather than feared as a monarch. He has no guards, no prisons, no officers of justice, and one act of ill-judged violence would pull him from the throne. The elders, in the other form of government, which may be considered as an aristocracy, have no more power. In some tribes, indeed, there are a kind of hereditary nobility, whose influence being constantly augmented by time, is more considerable. (See the article NIAGARA.) But this source of power which depends chiefly on the imagination, by which we annex to the merit of our contemporaries that of their forefathers, is too refined to be very common among the natives of America. In most countries, therefore, age alone is sufficient for acquiring respect, influence, and authority. It is age which teaches experience, and experience is the only source of knowledge among a barbarous people. Among those persons business is conducted with the utmost simplicity, and which may recall to those who are acquainted with antiquity a picture of the most early ages. The heads of families meet together in a house or cabin appointed for the purpose. Here the business is discussed; and here those of the nation, distinguished for their eloquence or wisdom, have an opportunity of displaying those talents. Their orators, like those of Homer, express themselves in a bold figurative style, stronger than refined, or rather softened, nations can well bear, and with gestures equally violent, but often extremely natural and expressive. When the business is over, and they happen to be well provided with food, they appoint a feast upon the occasion, of which almost the whole nation partakes. The feast is accompanied with a song, in which the real or fabulous exploits of their forefathers are celebrated. They have dances too, though, like those of the Greeks and Romans, chiefly of the military kind; and their music and dancing accompany every feast.

78 3
Their public assemblies.

To assist their memory, they have belts of small America. shells or beads, of different colours, each representing a particular object, which is marked by their colour and arrangement. At the conclusion of every subject on which they discourse, when they treat with a foreign Wampum reign state, they deliver one of those belts; for if this or beats. ceremony should be omitted, all that they have said passes for nothing. Those belts are carefully deposited in each town, as the public records of the nation; and to them they occasionally have recourse, when any public contest happens with a neighbouring tribe. Of late, as the materials of which those belts are made have become scarce, they often give some skin in place of the wampum (the name of the beads), and receive in return presents of a more valuable kind from our commissioners; for they never consider a treaty as of any weight, unless every article in it be ratified by such a gratification.

It often happens, that those different tribes or nations, scattered as they are at an immense distance from one another, meet in their excursions after prey. If there subsists no animosity between them, which seldom is the case, they behave in the most friendly and courteous manner; but if they happen to be in a state of war, or if there has been no previous intercourse between them, all who are not friends are deemed enemies, and they fight with the most savage fury.

War, if we except hunting, is the only employment Their wars. of the men; as to every other concern, and even the little agriculture they enjoy, it is left to the women. Their most common motive for entering into war, when it does not arise from an accidental encounter or interference, is either to revenge themselves for the death of some lost friends, or to acquire prisoners who may assist them in their hunting, and whom they adopt into their society. These wars are either undertaken by some private adventurers, or at the instance of the whole community. In the latter case, all the young men who are disposed to go out to battle (for no one is compelled contrary to his inclination), give a bit of wood to the chief, as a token of their design to accompany him; for every thing among those people is transacted with a great deal of ceremony and many forms. The chief who is to conduct them sails several days, during which he converses with no one, and is particularly careful to observe his dreams; which the presumption natural to savages generally renders as favourable as he could desire. A variety of other superstitious and ceremonies are observed. One of the most hideous is setting the war-kettle on the fire, as an emblem that they are going out to devour their enemies; which among some nations must formerly have been the case, since they still continue to express it in clear terms, and use an emblem significant of the ancient usage. Then they despatch a porcelain, or large shell, to their allies, inviting them to come along, and drink the blood of their enemies. For with the Americans, as with the Greek of old,

"A generous friendship no cold medium knows;
"But with one love, with one resentment, glows."

They think that those in their alliance must not only adopt their enmities, but have their resentment wound up to the same pitch with themselves. And indeed no people carry their friendship or their resentment so far

America. far as they do; and this is what should be expected from their peculiar circumstances; that principle in human nature which is the spring of the social affections, acts with so much the greater force the more it is restrained. The Americans, who live in small societies, who see few objects and few persons, become wonderfully attached to these objects and persons, and cannot be deprived of them without feeling themselves miserable. Their ideas are too confined to enable them to entertain just sentiments of humanity, or universal benevolence. But this very circumstance, while it makes them cruel and savage to an incredible degree towards those with whom they are at war, adds a new force to their particular friendships, and to the common tie which unites the members of the same tribe, or of those different tribes which are an alliance with one another. Without attending to this reflection, some facts we are going to relate would excite our wonder without informing our reason, and we should be bewildered in a number of particulars, seemingly opposite to one another, without being sensible of the general cause from which they proceed.

Having finished all the ceremonies previous to the war, and the day appointed for their setting out on the expedition being arrived, they take leave of their friends, and exchange their clothes, or whatever moveables they have, in token of mutual friendship; after which they proceed from the town, their wives and female relations walking before, and attending them to some distance. The warriors march all dressed in their finest apparel and most showy ornaments, without any order. The chief walks slowly before them, singing the war-song, while the rest observe the most profound silence. When they come up to their women, they deliver them all their finery, and putting on their worst clothes, proceed on their expedition.

Every nation has its peculiar ensign or standard, which is generally some beast, bird, or fish. Those among the Five Nations are the bear, otter, wolf, tortoise, and eagle; and by these names the tribes are usually distinguished. They have the figures of those animals pricked and painted on several parts of their bodies; and when they march through the woods, they commonly, at every encampment, cut the representation of their ensign on trees, especially after a successful campaign; marking at the same time the number of scalps or prisoners they have taken. Their military dress is extremely singular. They cut off or pull out all their hair, except a spot about the breadth of two English crown pieces, near the top of their heads, and entirely destroy their eyebrows. The lock left upon their heads is divided into several parcels, each of which is stiffened and adorned with wampum, beads, and feathers of various kinds, the whole being twisted into a form much resembling the modern pompon. Their heads are painted red down to the eyebrows, and sprinkled over with white down. The griffles of their ears are split almost quite round, and distended with wires or splinters so as to meet and tie together on the nape of the neck. These are also hung with ornaments, and generally bear the representation of some bird or beast. Their noses are likewise bored and hung with trinkets of beads, and their faces painted with various colours, so as to make an awful appearance. Their breasts are adorned with a gorget or

medal, of brass, copper, or some other metal; and that dreadful weapon the scalping knife hangs by a string from their neck.

The great qualities in an Indian war are vigilance and attention, to give and to avoid a surprise; and indeed in these they are superior to all nations in the world. Accustomed to continual wandering in the forests, having their perceptions sharpened by keen necessity; and living in every respect according to nature, their external senses have a degree of acuteness which at first view appears incredible. They can trace out their enemies at an immense distance by the smoke of their fires, which they smell, and by the tracks of their feet on the ground, imperceptible to an European eye, but which they can count and distinguish with the utmost facility. They can even distinguish the different nations with whom they are acquainted, and can determine the precise time when they passed, where an European could not, with all his glasses, distinguish footsteps at all. These circumstances, however, are of small importance, because their enemies are no less acquainted with them. When they go out, therefore, they take care to avoid making use of any thing by which they might run the danger of a discovery. They light no fire to warm themselves or to prepare their victuals: they lie close to the ground all day, and travel only in the night; and marching along in files, he that closes the rear diligently covers with leaves the tracks of his own feet and of theirs who preceded him. When they halt to refresh themselves, scouts are sent out to reconnoitre the country and beat up every place where they suspect an enemy to lie concealed. In this manner they enter unawares the villages of their foes; and, while the flower of the nation are engaged in hunting, massacre all the children, women, and helpless old men, or make prisoners of as many as they can manage, or have strength enough to be useful to their nation. But when the enemy is apprised of their design, and coming on in arms against them, they throw themselves flat on the ground among the withered herbs and leaves, which their faces are painted to resemble. Then they allow a part to pass un molested, when all at once, with a tremendous shout, rising up from their ambush, they pour a storm of musket bullets on their foes. The party attacked returns the same cry. Every one shelters himself with a tree, and returns the fire of the adverse party, as soon as they raise themselves from the ground to give a second fire. Thus does the battle continue until the one party is so much weakened as to be incapable of farther resistance. But if the force on each side continues nearly equal, the fierce spirits of the savages, inflamed by the loss of their friends, can no longer be restrained. They abandon their distant war, they rush upon one another with clubs and hatchets in their hands, magnifying their own courage, and insulting their enemies with the bitterest reproaches. A cruel combat ensues, death appears in a thousand hideous forms, which would congel the blood of civilized nations to behold, but which rouse the fury of savages. They trample, they insult over the dead bodies, tearing the scalp from the head, wallowing in their blood like wild beasts, and sometimes devouring their flesh. The flame rages on till it meets with no resistance; then the prisoners are secured, those unhappy men,

America. whose fate is a thousand times more dreadful than theirs who have died in the field. The conquerors set up a hideous howling to lament the friends they have lost. They approach in a melancholy and severe gloom to their own village; a messenger is sent to announce their arrival, and the women, with frightful shrieks, come out to mourn their dead brothers or their husbands. When they are arrived, the chief relates in a low voice to the elders a circumstantial account of every particular of the expedition. The orator proclaims aloud this account to the people; and as he mentions the names of those who have fallen, the shrieks of the women are redoubled. The men too join in these cries, according as each is most connected with the deceased by blood or friendship. The last ceremony is the proclamation of the victory; each individual then forgets his private misfortunes, and joins in the triumph of his nation; all tears are wiped from their eyes, and by an unaccountable transition, they pass in a moment from the bitterness of sorrow to an extravagance of joy. But the treatment of the prisoners, whose fate all this time remains undecided, is what chiefly characterizes the savages.

We have already mentioned the strength of their affections or resentments. United as they are in small societies, connected within themselves by the firmest ties, their friendly affections, which glow with the most intense warmth within the walls of their own village, seldom extend beyond them. They feel nothing for the enemies of their nation; and their resentment is easily extended from the individual who has injured them to all others of the same tribe. The prisoners, who have themselves the same feelings, know the intentions of their conquerors, and are prepared for them.

²⁷ Treatment of their prisoners. The person who has taken the captive attends him to the cottage, where, according to the distribution made by the elders, he is to be delivered to supply the loss of a citizen. If those who receive him have their family weakened by war or other accidents, they adopt the captive into the family, of which he becomes a member. But if they have no occasion for him, or their resentment for the loss of their friends be too high to endure the sight of any connected with those who were concerned in it, they sentence him to death. All those who have met with the same severe sentence being collected, the whole nation is assembled at the execution, as for some great solemnity. A scaffold is erected, and the prisoners are tied to the stake, where they commence their death-song, and prepare for the ensuing scene of cruelty with the most undaunted courage. Their enemies, on the other side, are determined to put it to the proof, by the most refined and exquisite tortures. They begin at the extremity of his body, and gradually approach the more vital parts. One plucks out his nails by the roots, one by one; another takes a finger into his mouth, and tears off the flesh with his teeth; a third thrusts the finger, mangled as it is, into the bowl of a pipe made red hot, which he smokes like tobacco; then they pound his toes and fingers to pieces between two stones; they cut circles about his joints, and gashes in the fleshy parts of his limbs, which they fear immediately with red hot irons, cutting, burning, and pinching them alternately; they pull off his flesh, thus mangled and roasted, bit by bit, devouring it with greediness, and smearing their faces

with the blood in an enthusiasm of horror and fury. America. When they have thus torn off the flesh, they twist the bare nerves and tendons about an iron, tearing and snapping them, whilst others are employed in pulling and extending their limbs in every way that can increase the torment. This continues often five or six hours; and sometimes, such is the strength of the savages, days together. Then they frequently unbind him, to give a breathing to their fury, to think what new torments they shall inflict, and to refresh the strength of the sufferer, who, wearied out with such a variety of un-heard-of torments, often falls into so profound a sleep, that they are obliged to apply the fire to awake him, and renew his sufferings. He is again fastened to the stake, and again they renew their cruelty; they stick him all over with small matches of wood that easily takes fire, but burns slowly; they continually run sharp reeds into every part of his body; they drag out his teeth with pincers, and thrust out his eyes; and lastly, after having burned his flesh from the bones with slow fires; after having so mangled the body that it is all but one wound; after having mutilated his face in such a manner as to carry nothing human in it; after having peeled the skin from the head, and poured a heap of red-hot coals or boiling water on the naked skull—they once more unbind the wretch; who, blind, and staggering with pain and weakness, assaulted and pelted upon every side with clubs and stones, now up, now down, falling into their fires at every step, runs hither and thither, until one of the chiefs, whether out of compassion, or weary of cruelty, puts an end to his life with a club or dagger. The body is then put into a kettle, and this barbarous employment is succeeded by a feast as barbarous.

The women, forgetting the human as well as the female nature, and transformed into something worse than furies, even outdo the men in this scene of horror; while the principal persons of the country fit round the stake, smoking and looking on without the least emotion. What is most extraordinary, the sufferer himself, in the little intervals of his torments, ²⁹ Consciousness smokes too, appears unconcerned, and converses with of the his torturers about indifferent matters. Indeed, during ferret. the whole time of his execution, there seems a contest which shall exceed, they in inflicting the most horrid pains, or he in enduring them with a firmness and constancy almost above human: not a groan, not a sigh, not a distortion of countenance, escapes him; he possesses his mind entirely in the midst of his torments; he recounts his own exploits; he informs them what cruelties he has inflicted upon their countrymen, and threatens them with the revenge that will attend his death; and, though his reproaches exasperate them to a perfect madness of rage and fury, he continues his insults even of their ignorance of the art of tormenting, pointing out himself more exquisite methods, and more sensible parts of the body to be afflicted. The women have this part of courage as well as the men; and it is as rare for an Indian to behave otherwise, as it would be for any European to suffer as an Indian. Such is the wonderful power of an early institution, and a ferocious thirst of glory. "I am brave and intrepid (exclaims the savage in the face of his tormentors); I do not fear death, nor any kind of tortures; those who fear them are cowards; they are less than women;

America. women: life is nothing to those that have courage: May my enemies be confounded with despair and rage! Oh! that I could devour them, and drink their blood to the last drop."

³⁰ But neither the intrepidity on one side, nor the inflexibility on the other, are among themselves matter of astonishment: for vengeance, and fortitude in the midst of torment, are duties which they consider as sacred; they are the effects of their earliest education, and depend upon principles instilled into them from their infancy. On all other occasions they are humane and compassionate. Nothing can exceed the warmth of their affection towards their friends, who consist of all those who live in the same village, or are in alliance with it. Among these all things are common; and this, though it may in part arise from their not possessing very distinct notions of separate property, is chiefly to be attributed to the strength of their attachment; because in every thing else, with their lives as well as their fortunes, they are ready to serve their friends. Their houses, their provisions, even their young women, are not enough to oblige a guest. Has any one of these succeeded ill in his hunting; has his harvest failed; or is his house burned—he feels no other effect of his misfortunes, than that it gives him an opportunity to experience the benevolence and regard of his fellow-citizens. On the other hand, to the enemies of his country, or to those who have privately offended, the American is implacable. He conceals his sentiments, he appears reconciled, until by some treachery or surprise he has an opportunity of executing a horrible revenge. No length of time is sufficient to allay his resentment; no distance of place great enough to protect the object: he crosses the steepest mountains, he pierces the most impracticable forests, and traverses the most hideous bogs and deserts for several hundreds of miles; bearing the inclemency of the seasons, the fatigue of the expedition, the extremes of hunger and thirst, with patience and cheerfulness, in hopes of surprising his enemy, on whom he exercises the most shocking barbarities, even to the eating of his flesh. To such extremes do the Indians push their friendship or their enmity; and such indeed, in general, is the character of all strong and uncultivated minds.

³¹ But what we have said respecting the Indians would be a faint picture, did we omit observing the force of their friendship, which principally appears by the treatment of their dead. When any one of the society is cut off, he is lamented by the whole. On this occasion a thousand ceremonies are practised, denoting the most lively sorrow. No business is transacted, however pressing, till all the pious ceremonies due to the dead are performed. The body is washed, anointed, and painted. Then the women lament the loss with hideous howlings, intermixed with songs which celebrate the great actions of the deceased and his ancestors. The men mourn in a less extravagant manner. The whole village is present at the interment, and the corpse is habited in their most sumptuous ornaments. Close to the body of the defunct are placed his bows and arrows, with whatever he valued most in his life, and a quantity of provisions for his subsistence on the journey which he is supposed to take. This solemnity, like every other, is attended with feasting. The funeral being ended, the relations of the deceased confine themselves

to their huts for a considerable time to indulge their America. grief. After an interval of some weeks they visit the grave, repeat their sorrow, new clothe the remains of the body, and act over again all the solemnities of the funeral.

Among the various tokens of their regard for their deceased friends, the most remarkable is what they call the feast of the dead, or the feast of souls. The day for this ceremony is appointed in the council of their chiefs, who give orders for every thing which may enable them to celebrate it with pomp and magnificence; and the neighbouring nations are invited to partake of the entertainment. At this time, all who have died since the preceding feast of the kind are taken out of their graves. Even those who have been interred at the greatest distance from the villages are diligently sought for, and conducted to this rendezvous of the dead, which exhibits a scene of horror beyond the power of description. When the feast is concluded, the bodies are dressed in the finest skins which can be procured, and after being exposed for some time in this pomp, are again committed to the earth with great solemnity, which is succeeded by funeral games.

³² Their taste for war, which forms the chief ingredient in their character, gives a strong bias to their religion. Aretkoui, or the god of battle, is revered as the great god of the Indians. Him they invoke before they go into the field; and according as his disposition is more or less favourable to them, they conclude they will be more or less successful. Some nations worship the sun and moon; among others there are a number of traditions, relative to the creation of the world and the history of the gods: traditions which resemble the Grecian fables, but which are still more absurd and inconsistent. But religion is not the prevailing character of the Indians; and except when they have some immediate occasion for the assistance of their gods, they pay them no sort of worship. Like all rude nations, however, they are strongly addicted to superstition. They believe in the existence of a number of good and bad genii or spirits, who interfere in the affairs of mortals, and produce all our happiness or misery. It is from the evil genii, in particular, that our diseases proceed; and it is to the good genii we are indebted for a cure. The ministers of the genii are the jugglers, who are also the only physicians among the savages. These jugglers are supposed to be inspired by the good genii, most commonly in their dreams, with the knowledge of future events; they are called in to the assistance of the sick, and are supposed to be informed by the genii whether they will get over the disease, and in what way they must be treated. But these spirits are extremely simple in their system of physic, and, in almost every disease, direct the juggler to the same remedy. The patient is enclosed in a narrow cabin, in the midst of which is a stone red hot: on this they throw water, until he is well soaked with the warm vapour and his own sweat. Then they hurry him from this bagnar, and plunge him suddenly into the next river. This coarse method, which costs many their lives, often performs very extraordinary cures. The jugglers have likewise the use of some species of wonderful efficacy; and all the savages are dexterous in curing wounds by the application of herbs. But the power of these remedies is always

³³ America. ways attributed to the magical ceremonies with which they are administered.

Condition of their women. Though the women generally bear the laborious part of domestic economy, their condition is far from being so slavish as it appears. On the contrary, the greatest respect is paid by the men to the female sex. The women even hold their councils, and have their share in all deliberations which concern the state. Polygamy is practised by some nations, but is not general. In most, they content themselves with one wife; but a divorce is admitted in case of adultery. No nation of the Americans is without a regular marriage, in which there are many ceremonies; the principal of which is, the bride's presenting the bridegroom with a plate of their corn. The women, though before incontinent, are remarkable for chastity after marriage.

³⁴ Their ardent love of liberty. Liberty, in its full extent, being the darling passion of the Indians, their education is directed in such a manner as to cherish this disposition to the utmost. Hence children are never upon any account chastised with blows, and they are seldom even reprimanded. Reason, they say, will guide their children when they come to the use of it, and before that time their faults cannot be very great; but blows might damp their free and martial spirit, by the habit of a slavish motive to action. When grown up, they experience nothing like command, dependence, or subordination; even strong persuasion is industriously withheld by those who have influence among them.—No man is held in great esteem, unless he has increased the strength of his country with a captive, or adorned his hut with a scalp of one of his enemies.

Controversies among the Indians are few, and quickly decided. When any criminal matter is so flagrant as to become a national concern, it is brought under the jurisdiction of the great council; but in ordinary cases, the crime is either revenged or compromised by the parties concerned. If a murder be committed, the family which has lost a relation prepares to retaliate on that of the offender. They often kill the murderer; and when this happens, the kindred of the last person slain look upon themselves to be as much injured, and to have the same right to vengeance, as the other party. In general, however, the offender absents himself; the friends send compliments of condolence to those of the person that has been murdered. The head of the family at length appears with a number of presents, the delivery of which he accompanies with a formal speech. The whole ends, as usual, in mutual fealings, songs, and dances. If the murder is committed by one of the same family or cabin, that cabin has the full right of judgment within itself, either to punish the guilty with death, or to pardon him, or to oblige him to give some recompense to the wife or children of the slain. Instances of such a crime, however, very seldom happen; for their attachment to those of the same family is remarkably strong, and is said to produce such friendships as may vie with the most celebrated in fabulous antiquity.

³⁵ Peculiar manners of different nations. Such, in general, are the manners and customs of the Indian nations; but every tribe has something peculiar to itself. Among the Hurons and Natches, the dignity of the chief is hereditary, and the right of succession in the female line. When this happens to be

extinct, the most respectable matron of the tribe makes America. choice of whom she pleases to succeed.

The Cherokees are governed by several sachems or chiefs, elected by the different villages; as are also the Creeks and Chactaws. The two latter punish adultery in a woman by cutting off her hair, which they will not suffer to grow till the corn is ripe the next season; but the Illinois, for the same crime, cut off the women's noses and ears.

The Indians on the lakes are formed into a sort of empire; and the emperor is elected from the eldest tribe, which is that of the Ottowawaws. He has the greatest authority of any chief that has appeared on the continent since our acquaintance with it. A few years ago, the person who held this rank formed a design of uniting all the Indian nations under his sovereignty; but he miscarried in the attempt.

³⁷ In general, the American Indians live to a great age, longevity although it is not possible to know from themselves the exact number of their years. It was asked of an Indian, who appeared to be extremely old, what age he was of? I am above twenty, was his reply. Upon putting the question in a different form, by reminding him of certain circumstances in former times, My machu, said he, spoke to me when I was young of the Incas; and he had seen these princes. According to this reply, there must have elapsed, from the date of his machu's (his grandfather's) remembrance to that time, a period of at least 232 years. The man who made this reply appeared to be 120 years of age: for, besides the whiteness of his hair and beard, his body was almost bent to the ground; without, however, showing any other marks of debility or suffering. This happened in 1764. This longevity, attended in general with uninterrupted health, is probably the consequence in part of their vacancy from all serious thought and employment, joined also with the robust texture and conformation of their bodily organs. If the Indians did not destroy one another in their almost perpetual wars, and if their habits of intoxication were not so universal and incurable, they would be, of all the races of men who inhabit the globe, the most likely to prolong, not only the bounds, but the enjoyments, of animal life to their utmost duration.

³⁸ Let us now attend to other pictures which have been given of the aboriginal inhabitants of the new world. The vices and defects of the American Indians have by several writers been most unaccountably aggravated, and every virtue and good quality denied them. Their cruelties have been already described and accounted for. The following anecdote of an Algonquin woman we find adduced as a remarkable proof of their innate thirst of blood. That nation being at war with the Iroquois, she happened to be made prisoner, and was carried to one of the villages belonging to them. Here she was stripped naked, and her hands and feet bound with ropes in one of their cabins. In this condition she remained ten days, the savages sleeping round her every night. The eleventh night, while they were asleep, she found means to disengage one of her hands, with which she immediately freed herself from the ropes, and went to the door. Though she had now an opportunity of escaping unperceived,

America. received, her revengeful temper could not let slip so favourable an opportunity of killing one of her enemies. The attempt was manifestly at the hazard of her own life; yet, snatching up a hatchet, she killed the savage that lay next her; and, springing out of the cabin, concealed herself in a hollow tree which she had observed the day before. The groans of the dying person soon alarmed the other savages, and the young ones immediately set out in pursuit of her.—Perceiving from her tree, that they all directed their course one way, and that no savage was near her, she left her sanctuary, and, flying in an opposite direction, ran into a forest without being perceived. The second day after this happened, her footsteps were discovered, and they pursued her with such expedition, that the third day she discovered her enemies at her heels. Upon this she threw herself into a pond of water; and, diving among some weeds and balrushes, she could just breathe above water without being perceived. Her pursuers, after making the most diligent search, were forced to return.—For 35 days this woman held on her course through woods and deserts, without any other sustenance than roots and wild berries. When she came to the river St Lawrence, she made with her own hands a kind of a wicker raft, on which she crossed it. As she went by the French fort Trois Rivieres, without well knowing where she was, she perceived a canoe full of savages; and, fearing they might be Iroquois, ran again into the woods, where she remained till sunset.—Continuing her course, soon after she saw the Trois Rivieres; and was then discovered by a party whom she knew to be Hurons, a nation in alliance with the Algonquins. She then squatted down behind a bush, calling out to them that she was not in a condition to be seen, because she was naked. They immediately threw her a blanket, and then conducted her to the fort, where she recounted her story.

45
Reproached with pusillanimity. Personal courage has been denied them. In proof of their pusillanimity, the following incidents are quoted from Charlevoix by Lord Kames, in his Sketches of the History of Man. "The fort de Vercheres in Canada, belonging to the French, was, in the year 1692, attacked by some Iroquois. They approached silently, preparing to scale the palisade, when some musket shot made them retire. Advancing a second time, they were again repulsed, wondering that they could discover none but a woman who was seen everywhere. This was Madame de Vercheres, who appeared as resolute as if supported by a numerous garrison. The hopes of storming a place without men to defend it occasioned reiterated attacks. After two days siege, they retired, fearing to be intercepted in their retreat. Two years after, a party of the same nation appeared before the fort so unexpectedly, that a girl of fourteen, daughter of the proprietor, had but time to shut the gate. With the young woman there was not a soul but one raw soldier. She showed herself with her assailant, sometimes in one place and sometimes in another; changing her dress frequently, in order to give some appearance of a garrison; and always fired opportunely. The faint-hearted Iroquois decamped without success."

There is no instance, it is said, either of a single Indian facing an individual of any other nation in fair and open combat, or of their jointly venturing to try the fate of battle with an equal number of any foes.

Even with the greatest superiority of numbers, they dare not meet an open attack. Yet, notwithstanding this want of courage, they are still formidable; nay, it has been known, that a small party of them has routed a much superior body of regular troops: but this can only happen when they have surprised them in the fastnesses of their forests, where the covert of the wood may conceal them until they take their aim with the utmost certainty. After one such discharge they immediately retreat, without leaving the smallest trace of their route. It may easily be supposed, that an onset of this kind must produce confusion even among the steadiest troops, when they can neither know the number of their enemies, nor perceive the place where they lie in ambush.

41
Perfidy combined with cruelty has been also made a part of their character. Don Ulloa relates, that the Indians of the country called Natchez, in Louisiana, laid a plot for massacring in one night every individual belonging to the French colony established there. This plot they actually executed, notwithstanding the seeming good understanding that subsisted between them and these European neighbours. Such was the secrecy which they observed, that no person had the least suspicion of their design until the blow was struck. One Frenchman alone escaped, by favour of the darkness, to relate the disaster of his countrymen. The compassion of a female Indian contributed also in some measure to his exemption from the general massacre. The tribe of Natchez had invited the Indians of other countries, even to a considerable distance, to join in the same conspiracy. The day, or rather the night, was fixed, on which they were to make an united attack on the French colonists. It was intimated by sending a parcel of rods, more or less numerous according to the local distance of each tribe, with an injunction to abstract one rod daily; the day on which the last fell to be taken away being that fixed for the execution of their plan. The women were partners of the bloody secret. The parcels of rods being thus distributed, that belonging to the tribe of Natchez happened to remain in the custody of a female. This woman, either moved by her own feelings of compassion, or by the commiseration expressed by her female acquaintances in the view of the proposed scene of bloodshed, abstracted one day three or four of the rods, and thus anticipated the term of her tribe's proceeding to the execution of the general conspiracy. The consequence of this was, that the Natchez were the only actors in this carnage; their distant associates having still several rods remaining at the time when the former made the attack. An opportunity was thereby given to the colonists in those quarters to take measures for their defence, and for preventing a more extensive execution of the design.

It was by conspiracies similar to this that the Indians of the province of Macas, in the kingdom of Quito, destroyed the opulent city of Logroño, the colony of Guambaya, and its capital Sevilla del Oro; and that so completely, that it is no longer known in what place these settlements existed, or where that abundance of gold was found from which the last mentioned city took the addition to its name. Like ravages have been committed upon l'Imperiale in Chili, the colonies of the Millions of Chuacas, those of Darien in Terra Firma, and

America, and many other places which have afforded scenes of this barbarous ferocity. These conspiracies are always carried on in the same manner. The secret is inviolably kept, the actors assemble at the proclivous hour appointed, and every individual is animated with the same sanguinary purposes. The males that fall into their hands are put to death with every shocking circumstance that can be suggested by a cool and determined cruelty. The females are carried off, and preserved as monuments of their victory, to be employed as their occasions require.

Nor can this odious cruelty and treachery, it is said, be justly ascribed to their subjection to a foreign yoke, seeing the same character belongs equally to all the original inhabitants of this vast continent, even those who have preserved their independence most completely. Certain it is, continues he, that these people, with the most limited capacities for every thing else, display an astonishing degree of penetration and subtlety with respect to every object that involves treachery, bloodshed, and rapine. As to these, they seem to have been all educated at one school; and a secret, referring to any such plan, no consideration on earth can extort from them.

42 Their understanding represented as weak.
Their understandings also have been represented as not less contemptible than their manners are gross and brutal. Many nations are neither capable of forming an arrangement for futurity; nor do their solicitude or foresight extend so far. They set no value upon those things of which they are not in some immediate want. In the evening, when a Carib is going to rest, no consideration will tempt him to sell his hammock; but in the morning he will part with it for the slightest trifle. At the close of winter, a North American, mindful of what he has suffered from the cold, sets himself with vigour to prepare materials for erecting a comfortable hut to protect him against the inclemency of the succeeding season; but as soon as the weather becomes mild, he abandons his work, and never thinks of it more till the return of the cold compels him to resume it.—In short, to be free from labour seems to be the utmost wish of an American. They will continue whole days stretched in their hammocks, or seated on the earth, without changing their posture, raising their eyes, or uttering a single word. They cannot compute the succession of days nor of weeks. The different aspects of the moon alone engage their attention as a measure of time. Of the year they have no other conception than what is suggested to them by the alternate heat of summer and cold of winter; nor have they the least idea of applying to this period the obvious computation of the months which it contains. When it is asked of any old man in Peru, even the most civilized, what age he is of; the only answer he can give is the number of caciques he has seen. It often happens, too, that they only recollect the most distant of these princes in whose time certain circumstances had happened peculiarly memorable, while of those that lived in a more recent period they have lost all remembrance.

43 Alleged indolence and stupidity.
The same gross stupidity is alleged to be observable in those Indians who have retained their original liberty. They are never known to fix the dates of any events in their minds, or to trace the succession of circumstances that have arisen from such events. Their imagination

takes in only the present, and in that only what intimately concerns themselves. Nor can discipline or instruction overcome this natural defect of apprehension. In fact, the subjected Indians in Peru, who have a continual intercourse with the Spaniards, who are furnished with curates perpetually occupied in given them lessons of religion and morality, and who mix with all ranks of the civilized society established among them, are almost as stupid and barbarous as their countrymen who have had no such advantages. The Peruvians, while they lived under the government of their Incas, preserved the records of certain remarkable events. They had also a kind of regular government, described by the historians of the conquest of Peru. This government originated entirely from the attention and abilities of their princes, and from the regulations enacted by them for directing the conduct of their subjects. This ancient degree of civilization among them gives ground to presume, that their legislators sprung from some race more enlightened than the other tribes of Indians; a race of which no individual seems to remain in the present times.

44 Their vanity and treachery.
Vanity and conceit are said to be blended with their ignorance and treachery. Notwithstanding all they suffer from Europeans, they still, it is said, consider themselves as a race of men far superior to their conquerors. This proud belief, arising from their perverted ideas of excellence, is universal over the whole known continent of America. They do not think it possible that any people can be so intelligent as themselves. When they are detected in any of their plots, it is their common observation, that the Spaniards, or Viracobas, want to be as knowing as they are. Those of Louisiana, and the countries adjacent, are equally vain of their superior understanding, confounding that quality with the cunning which they themselves constantly practise. The whole object of their transactions is to overreach those with whom they deal. Yet though faithless themselves, they never forgive the breach of promise on the part of others. While the Europeans seek their amity by presents, they give themselves no concern to secure a reciprocal friendship. Hence, probably, arises their idea, that they must be a superior race of men, in ability and intelligence, to those who are at such pains to court their alliance and avert their enmity.

45 Their eloquence.
Their natural eloquence has also been decried. The free tribes of savages who enter into conventions with the Europeans, it is observed, are accustomed to make long, pompous, and, according to their own notions, sublime harangues, but without any method or connection. The whole is a collection of disjointed metaphors and comparisons. The light, heat, and course of the sun, form the principal topic of their discourse; and these unintelligible reasonings are always accompanied with violent and ridiculous gestures. Numberless repetitions prolong the oration, which, if not interrupted, would last whole days: At the same time, they meditate very accurately beforehand, in order to avoid mentioning any thing but what they are desirous to obtain. This pompous faculty of making speeches is also one of the grounds on which they conceive themselves to be superior to the nations of Europe: They imagine that it is their eloquence that procures them the favours they ask. The subjected Indians converse precisely

America. precisely in the same style. Prolix and tedious, they never know when to stop; so that, excepting by the difference in language, it would be impossible, in this respect, to distinguish a civilized Peruvian from an inhabitant of the most savage districts to the northward.

⁴⁶ All these views partial, and not free from misrepresentation. But such partial and detached views as the above, were they even free from misrepresentation, are not the just ground upon which to form an estimate of their character. Their qualities, good and bad (for they certainly possess both), their way of life, the state of society among them, with all the circumstances of their condition, ought to be considered in connexion, and in regard to their mutual influence. Such a view has been given in the preceding part of this article: from which, it is hoped, their real character may be easily deduced.

Many of the disagreeable traits exhibited in the anecdotes just quoted, are indeed extracted from Don Ulloa, an author of credit and reputation, but a Spaniard, and evidently biased in some degree by a desire to palliate the enormities of his countrymen in that quarter of the globe. And with regard to the worst and least equivocal parts of the American character, cruelty and revenge, it may be fairly questioned, whether the instances of these, either in respect of their cause or their atrocity, be at all comparable to those exhibited in European history, and staining the annals of Christendom:—to those, for instance, of the Spaniards themselves, at their first discovery of America; to those indicated by the engines found on board their mighty Armada; to those which, in cold blood, were perpetrated by the Dutch at Amboyna; to the dragoomings of the French; to their religious massacres; or even to the tender mercies of the Inquisition!

⁴⁷ The physical descriptions of Buffon and De Paw refuted. Still harsher, however, are the descriptions given by Buffon and De Paw of the natives of this whole continent, in which the most mortifying degeneracy of the human race, as well as of all the inferior animals, is asserted to be conspicuous. Against those philosophers, or rather theorists, the Americans have found an able advocate in the Abbé Clavigero; an historian whose situation and long residence in America afforded him the best means of information, and who, though himself a subject of Spain, appears superior to prejudice, and disdains in his description the glosses of policy.

Concerning the stature of the Americans, M. de Paw says in general, that although it is not equal to the stature of the Castilians, there is but little difference between them. But the Abbé Clavigero evinces that the Indians who inhabit those countries lying between 9 and 40 degrees of north latitude, which are the limits of the discoveries of the Spaniards, are more than five Parisian feet in height, and that those who do not reach that stature are as few in number among the Indians as they are amongst the Spaniards. It is besides certain, that many of those nations, as the Apaches, the Huaches, the Pimes, and Cochimies, are at least as tall as the tallest Europeans; and that, in all the vast extent of the new world, no race of people has been found, except the Esquimaux, so diminutive in stature as the Laplanders, the Samojeds, and Tartars, in the north of the old continent. In this respect, therefore,

the inhabitants of the two continents are upon an American equality.

Of the shape and character of the Mexican Indians the Abbé gives a most advantageous description; which he asserts no one who reads it in America will contradict, unless he views them with the eye of a prejudiced mind. It is true, that Ulloa says, in speaking of the Indians of Quito, he had observed, "that imperfect people abounded among them; that they were either irregularly diminutive, or monstrous in some other respect; that they became either insensible, dumb, or blind, or wanted some limb of their body." Having therefore made some inquiry respecting this singularity of the Quitans, the Abbé found that such defects were neither caused by bad humours, nor by the climate, but by the mistaken and blind humanity of their parents, who, in order to free their children from the hardships and toils to which the healthy Indians are subjected by the Spaniards, fix some deformity or weakness upon them that they may become usefless: a circumstance of misery which does not happen in other countries of America, nor in those places of the same kingdom of Quito, where the Indians are under no such oppression. M. de Paw, and, in agreement with him, Dr Robertson, says, that no deformed persons are to be found among the savages of America; because, like the ancient Lacedemonians, they put to death those children which are born hunch-backed, blind, or defective in any limb; but that in those countries where they are formed into societies, and the vigilance of their rulers prevents the murder of such infants, the number of their deformed individuals is greater than it is in any country of Europe. This would make an exceeding good solution of the difficulty if it were true; but if, possibly, there has been in America a tribe of savages who have imitated the barbarous example of the celebrated Lacedemonians, it is certain that those authors have no grounds to impute such inhumanity to the rest of the Americans; for that it has not been the practice, at least with the far greater part of those nations, is to be demonstrated from the attestations of authors the best acquainted with their customs.

⁴⁸ No argument against the new world can be drawn from the colour of the Americans; for their colour is less distant from the white of the Europeans than it is from the black of the Africans, and a great part of the Asiatics. The hair of the Mexicans, and of the greater part of the Indians, is, as we have already said, coarse and thick; on their face they appear to have little, and in general none on their arms and legs: but it is an error to say, as M. de Paw does, that they are entirely destitute of hair on all the other parts of their body. This is one of the many passages of the Philosophical Researches, at which the Mexicans, and all the other nations, must smile to find an European philosopher so eager to divest them of the dress they had from nature. Don Ulloa, indeed, in the description which he gives of the Indians of Quito, says, that hair neither grows upon the men nor upon the women when they arrive at puberty, as it does on the rest of mankind; but, whatever singularity may attend the Quitans, or occasion this circumstance, there is no doubt that among the Americans in general, the period of puberty is accompanied with the same symptoms as it is among other

America. other nations of the world. In fact, with the North Americans, it is disgraceful to be hairy on the body. They say it likens them to hogs. They therefore pluck out the hair as fast as it appears. But the traders who marry their women, and prevail on them to discontinue this practice, say, that nature is the same with them as with the whites. As to the beards of the men, had Buffon or De Paw known the pains and trouble it costs them to pluck out by the roots the hair that grows on their faces, they would have seen that nature had not been deficient in that respect. Every nation has its customs. "I have seen an Indian beau, with a looking-glass in his hand (says Mr Jefferson), examining his face for hours together, and plucking out by the roots every hair he could discover, with a kind of tweezer made of a piece of fine brass wire, that had been twisted round a stick, and which he used with great dexterity.

50 Their forms and aspect contrasted with those of some other nations. The very aspect of an Angolan, Mandingan, or Congan, would have shocked M. de Paw, and made him recall that censure which he passes on the colour, the make, and hair, of the Americans. What can be imagined more contrary to the idea we have of beauty, and the perfection of the human frame, than a man whose body emits a rank smell, whose skin is as black as ink, whose head and face are covered with black wool instead of hair, whose eyes are yellow and bloody, whose lips are thick and blackish, and whose nose is flat? Such are the inhabitants of a very large portion of Africa, and of many islands of Asia. What men can be more imperfect than those who measure no more than four feet in stature, whose faces are long and flat, the nose compressed, the irides yellowish black, the eyelids turned back towards the temples, the cheeks extraordinarily elevated, their mouths monstrously large, their lips thick and prominent, and the lower part of their visages extremely narrow? Such, according to Count de Buffon, are the Laplanders, the Zemblans, the Borandines, the Samojeds, and Tartars in the east. What objects more deformed than men whose faces are too long and wrinkled even in their youth, their noses thick and compressed, their eyes small and sunk, their cheeks very much raised, their upper jaw low, their teeth long and disunited, eyebrows so thick that they shade their eyes; the eyelids thick, some bristles on their faces instead of beard, large thighs and small legs? Such is the picture Count de Buffon gives of the Tartars; that is, of those people who, as he says, inhabit a tract of land in Asia 1200 leagues long and upwards, and more than 750 broad. Amongst these the Calmucks are the most remarkable for their deformity; which is so great, that, according to Tavernier, they are the most brutal men of all the universe. Their faces are so broad, that there is a space of five or six inches between their eyes, according as Count de Buffon himself affirms. In Calicut, in Ceylon, and other countries of India, there is, say Pyrrard and other writers on these regions, a race of men who have one or both of their legs as thick as the body of a man; and that this deformity among them is almost hereditary. The Hottentots, besides other gross imperfections, have that monstrous irregularity attending them of a callous appendage extending from the os pubis downwards, according to the testimony of the historians of the Cape of Good Hope. Strays, Gemelli, and other

travellers affirm, that in the kingdom of Lambry, in the islands of Formosa and of Mindoro, men have been found with tails. Romare says, that a thing of this kind in men is nothing else than an elongation of the os coccygis; but what is a tail in quadrupeds but the elongation of that bone, though divided into distinct articulations? However it may be, it is certain, that that elongation renders those Asiatics fully as irregular as if it was a real tail.

If we were, in like manner, to go through the nations of Asia and Africa, we should hardly find any extensive country where the colour of men is not darker, where there are not stronger irregularities observed, and grosser defects to be found in them, than M. de Paw finds fault with in the Americans. The colour of the latter is a good deal clearer than that of almost all the Africans and the inhabitants of southern Asia. Even their alleged scantiness of beard is common to the inhabitants of the Philippine islands, and of all the Indian Archipelago, to the famous Chinese, Japanese, Tartars, and many other nations of the old continent. The imperfections of the Americans, however great they may be represented to be, are certainly not comparable with the defects of that immense people, whose character we have sketched, and others whom we omit.

51 Their constitution and corporal abilities. M. de Paw represents the Americans to be a feeble and diseased set of nations; and, in order to demonstrate the weakness and disorder of their physical constitution, adduces several proofs equally ridiculous and ill-founded, and which it will not be expected we should enumerate. He alleges, among other particulars, that they were overcome in wrestling by all the Europeans, and that they sunk under a moderate burden; that by a computation made, 200,000 Americans were found to have perished in one year from carrying of baggage. With respect to the first point, the Abbé Clavigero observes, it would be necessary that the experiment of wrestling was made between many individuals of each continent, and that the victory should be attested by the Americans as well as the Europeans. It is not, however, meant to imply, that the Americans are stronger than the Europeans. They may be less strong, without the human species having degenerated in them. The Swiss are stronger than the Italians; and still we do not believe the Italians are degenerated, nor do we tax the climate of Italy. The instance of 200,000 Americans having died in one year under the weight of baggage, were it true, would not convince us so much of the weakness of the Americans, as of the inhumanity of the Europeans. In the same manner that those 200,000 Americans perished, 200,000 Prussians would also have perished, had they been obliged to make a journey of between 300 and 400 miles, with 200 pounds of burden upon their backs; if they had collars of iron about their necks, and were obliged to carry that load over rocks and mountains; if those who became exhausted with fatigue, or wounded their feet so as to impede their progress, had their heads cut off that they might not retard the pace of the rest; and if they were not allowed but a small morsel of bread to enable them to support so severe a toil. Las Casas, from whom M. de Paw got the account of the 200,000 Americans who died under the fatigue of carrying baggage, relates also all the above-mentioned circumstances. If

America. that author therefore is to be credited in the last, he is also to be credited in the first. But a philosopher who vaunts the physical and moral qualities of Europeans over those of the Americans, would have done better, we think, to have suppressed facts so opprobrious to the Europeans themselves.

52. Their labour and industry. Nothing in fact demonstrates so clearly the robustness of the Americans as those various and lasting fatigues in which they are continually engaged. M. de Paw says, that when the new world was discovered, nothing was to be seen but thick woods; that at present there are some lands cultivated, not by the Americans, however, but by the Africans and Europeans; and that the soil in cultivation is to the soil which is uncultivated as 2000 to 2,000,000. These three assertions the Abbé demonstrates to be precisely as many errors. Since the conquest, the Americans alone have been the people who have supported all the fatigues of agriculture in all the vast countries of the continent of South America, and in the greater part of those of North America subject to the crown of Spain. No European is ever to be seen employed in the labours of the field. The Moors who, in comparison of the Americans, are very few in number in the kingdom of New Spain, are charged with the culture of the sugar cane and tobacco, and the making of sugar; but the soil destined for the cultivation of those plants is not with respect to all the cultivated land of that country in the proportion of one to two thousand. The Americans are the people who labour on the soil. They are the tillers, the sowers, the weeders, and the reapers of the wheat, of the maize, of the rice, of the beans, and other kinds of grain and pulse; of the cacao, of the vanilla, of the cotton, of the indigo, and all other plants useful to the sustenance, the clothing, and commerce of those provinces; and without them so little can be done, that in the year 1762, the harvest of wheat was abandoned in many places on account of a sickness which prevailed, and prevented the Indians from reaping it. But this is not all; the Americans are they who cut and transport all the necessary timber from the woods; who cut, transport, and work the stones; who make lime, plaster, and tiles; who construct all the buildings of that kingdom, except a few places where none of them inhabit; who open and repair all the roads, who make the canals and sluices, and clean the cities. They work in many mines of gold, of silver, of copper, &c. they are the shepherds, herdsmen, weavers, potters, basket-makers, bakers, couriers, day-labourers, &c. in a word, they are the persons who bear all the burden of public labours. These, says our justly indignant author, are the employments of the weak, dastardly, and useless Americans; while the vigorous M. de Paw, and other indefatigable Europeans, are occupied in writing invectives against them.

53. These a sufficient proof of their healthiness & strength. These labours, in which the Indians are continually employed, certainly attest their healthiness and strength; for if they are able to undergo such fatigues, they cannot be diseased, nor have an exhausted stream of blood in their veins, as M. de Paw insinuates. In order to make it believed that their constitutions are vitiated, he copies whatever he finds written by historians of America, whether true or false, respecting the diseases

which reign in some particular countries of that great continent. It is not to be denied, that in some countries in the wide compass of America, men are exposed more than elsewhere to the distempers which are occasioned by the intemperance of the air, or the pernicious quality of the aliments; but it is certain, according to the assertion of many respectable authors acquainted with the new world, that the American countries are, for the most part, healthy; and if the Americans were disposed to retaliate on M. de Paw, and other European authors who write as he does, they would have abundant subject of materials to throw discredit on the climate of the old continent, and the constitution of its inhabitants, in the endemic distempers which prevail there.

Lastly, The supposed feebleness and unfound bodily habit of the Americans do not correspond with the length of their lives. Among those Americans whose great fatigues and excessive toils do not anticipate their death, there are not a few who reach the age of 80, 90, and 100 or more years, as formerly mentioned; and what is more, without there being observed in them that decay which time commonly produces in the hair, in the teeth, in the skin, and in the muscles of the human body. This phenomenon, so much admired by the Spaniards who reside in Mexico, cannot be ascribed to any other cause than the vigour of their constitutions, the temperance of their diet, and the salubrity of their climate. Historians, and other persons who have sojourned there for many years, report the same thing of other countries of the new world.

54. As to the mental qualities of the Americans, M. de Paw has not been able to discover any other characters than a memory so feeble, that to-day they do not remember what they did yesterday; a capacity so blunt, that they are incapable of thinking, or putting their ideas in order; a disposition so cold, that they feel no excitement of love; a dastardly spirit, and a genius that is torpid and indolent. Many other Europeans, indeed, and what is still more wonderful, many of those children or descendants of Europeans who are born in America, think as M. de Paw does; some from ignorance, some from want of reflection, and others from hereditary prejudice and prepossession. But all this and more would not be sufficient to invalidate the testimonies of other Europeans, whose authority has a great deal more weight, both because they were men of great judgment, learning, and knowledge of these countries, and because they gave their testimony in favour of strangers against their own countrymen. In particular, Acosta, whose natural and moral history even M. de Paw commends as an excellent work, employs the whole sixth book in demonstrating the good sense of the Americans, by an explanation of their ancient government, their laws, their histories in paintings and knots, calendars, &c. M. de Paw thinks the Americans are bestial; Acosta, on the other hand, reputes those persons weak and presumptuous who think them so. M. de Paw says, that the most acute Americans were inferior in industry and sagacity to the rudest nations of the old continent; Acosta extols the civil government of the Mexicans above many republics of Europe. M. de Paw finds, in the moral and political conduct of the Americans, nothing but barbarity, extravagance,

America. travagance, and brutality; and Acosta finds there, laws that are admirable, and worthy of being preserved for ever.

55
M. de Paw's
proofs of
American
cowardice.

M. de Paw denies them courage, and alleges the conquest of Mexico as a proof of their cowardice. "Cortes (he says) conquered the empire of Mexico with 450 vagabonds and 15 horses, badly armed; his miserable artillery consisted of six falcons, which would not at the present day be capable of exciting the fears of a fortress defended by invalids. During his absence the capital was held in awe by the half of his troops. What men! what events!—It is confirmed by the depositions of all historians, that the Spaniards entered the first time into Mexico without making one single discharge of their artillery. If the title of hero is applicable to him who has the disgrace to occasion the death of a great number of rational animals, Ferdinand Cortes might pretend to it; otherwise I do not see what true glory he has acquired by the overthrow of a tottering monarchy, which might have been destroyed in the same manner by any other assassin of our continent."

56
Refuted.

These passages indicate either M. de Paw's ignorance of the history of the conquest of Mexico, or a wilful suppression of what would openly contradict his system; since all who have read that history know well, that the conquest of Mexico was not made with 450 men, but with more than 200,000. Cortes himself, to whom it was of more importance than to M. de Paw to make his bravery conspicuous, and his conquest appear glorious, confesses the excessive number of the allies who were under his command at the siege of the capital, and combated with more fury against the Mexicans than the Spaniards themselves. According to the account which Cortes gave to the emperor Charles V. the siege of Mexico began with 87 horses, 848 Spanish infantry, armed with guns, cross-bows, swords, and lances, and upwards of 75,000 allies, of Tlascala, Huexotzinco, Cholula, and Chalco, equipped with various sorts of arms; with three large pieces of iron cannon, 15 small of copper, and 13 brigantines. In the course of the siege were assembled the numerous nations of the Otomies, the Cohuixcas, and Matlazincas, and the troops of the populous cities of the lakes; so that the army of the besiegers not only exceeded 200,000, but amounted to 4,000,000, according to the letter from Cortes; and besides these, 3000 boats and canoes came to their assistance. Did it betray cowardice to have sustained, for full 75 days, the siege of an open city, engaging daily with an army so large, and in part provided with arms so superior, and at the same time having to withstand the ravages of famine? Can they merit the charge of cowardice, who, after having lost seven of the eight parts of their city, and about 50,000

citizens, part cut off by the sword, part by famine and sickness, continued to defend themselves until they were furiously assaulted in the last hold which was left them? See the article Mexico.

57
According to M. de Paw, "the Americans at first were not believed to be men, but rather satyrs, or large apes, which might be murdered without remorse or reproach. At last, in order to add insult to the oppression of those times, a pope made an original bull, in which he declared, that being desirous of founding bishoprics in the richest countries of America, it pleased him and the Holy Spirit to acknowledge the Americans to be true men: in so far, that without this decision of an Italian, the inhabitants of the new world would have appeared, even at this day, to the eyes of the faithful, a race of equivocal men. There is no example of such a decision since this globe has been inhabited by men and apes." Upon this passage the Abbé animadverts, as being a singular instance of calumny and misrepresentation; and gives the following history of the decision alluded to.

58
Some of the first Europeans who established themselves in America, not less powerful than avaricious, the famous desirous of enriching themselves to the detriment of the Americans, kept them continually employed, and made use of them as slaves; and in order to avoid the reproaches which were made them by the bishops and missionaries who inculcated humanity, and the giving liberty to those people to get themselves instructed in religion, that they might do their duties towards the church and their families, alleged, that the Indians were by nature slaves, and incapable of being instructed; and many other falsehoods of which the chronicler Herrera makes mention against them. Those zealous ecclesiastics being unable, either by their authority or preaching, to free those unhappy converts from the tyranny of such misers, had recourse to the Catholic kings, and at last obtained from their justice and clemency those laws, as favourable to the Americans as honourable to the court of Spain, that compose the Indian code, which were chiefly due to the indefatigable zeal of the bishop de las Casas. On another side, Garces bishop of Tlascala, knowing that those Spaniards bore, notwithstanding their perversity, a great respect to the decisions of the vicar of Jesus Christ, made application in the year 1586 to Pope Paul III. by that famous letter of which we have made mention; representing to him the evils which the Indians suffered from the wicked Christians, and praying him to interpose his authority in their behalf. The pope, moved by such heavy remonstrances, despatched the next year the original bull, a faithful copy of which we have here subjoined (a), which was not made, as is manifest, to declare the

America. the Americans true men; for such a piece of weakness was very distant from that or any other pope: but solely to support the natural rights of the Americans against the attempts of their oppressors, and to condemn the injustice and inhumanity of those, who, under the pretence of supposing these people idolatrous, or incapable of being instructed, took from them their property and their liberty, and treated them as slaves and beasts.

⁵⁹
Representation of Columbus. If at first the Americans were deemed satyrs, nobody can better prove it than Christopher Columbus, their discoverer. Let us hear, therefore, how that celebrated admiral speaks, in his account to the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella, of the first satyrs he saw in the island of Haiti or Hispaniola. "I swear," he says, "to your majesties, that there is not a better people in the world than these, more affectionate, affable, or mild. They love their neighbours as themselves: their language is the sweetest, the softest, and the most cheerful; for they always speak smiling; and although they go naked, let your majesties believe me, their customs are very becoming; and their king, who is served with great majesty, has such engaging manners, that it gives great pleasure to see him, and also to consider the retentive faculty of that people, and their desire of knowledge, which incites them to ask the causes and the effects of things."

⁶⁰
Conclusions concerning the capacities of the Americans. "We have had intimate commerce with the Americans (continues the Abbé); have lived for some years in a seminary destined for their instruction; saw the erection and progress of the royal college of Guadalupe, founded in Mexico by a Mexican Jesuit, for the education of Indian children; had afterwards some Indians amongst our pupils; had particular knowledge of many American rectors, many nobles, and numerous artists; attentively observed their character, their genius, their disposition, and manner of thinking; and having examined besides, with the utmost diligence, their ancient history, their religion, their government, their laws, and their customs: After such long experience and study of them, from which we imagine ourselves enabled to decide without danger of error, we declare to M. de Paw, and to all Europe, that the mental qualities of the Americans are not in the least inferior to those of the Europeans; that they are capable of all, even the most abstract sciences; and that, if equal care was taken of their education, if they were brought up from childhood in seminaries under good masters, were protected and stimulated by rewards, we should see rise among the Americans, philosophers, mathematicians, and divines, who would rival the first in Europe."

But although we should suppose, that, in the torrid climates of the new world, as well as in those of the old, especially under the additional depression of slavery, there was an inferiority of the mental powers, the Chinese and the North Americans have discovered higher rudiments of human excellence and ingenuity than have ever been known among tribes in a similar state of society in any part of the world.

M. de Paw affirms, that the Americans were unacquainted with the use of money, and quotes the following well-known passage from Montesquieu: "Imagine to yourself, that, by some accident, you are placed in an unknown country; if you find money there, do not doubt that you are arrived among a polished people." But if by money we are to understand a piece of metal with the stamp of the prince or the public, the want of it in a nation is no token of barbarity. The Athenians employed oxen for money, as the Romans did sheep. The Romans had no coined money till the time of Servius Tullius, nor the Persians until the reign of Darius Hystaspes. But if by money is understood a sign representing the value of merchandise, the Mexicans, and other nations of Anahuac, employed money in their commerce. The cacao, of which they made constant use in the market to purchase whatever they wanted, was employed for this purpose, as salt is in Abyssinia.

It has been affirmed that stone bridges were unknown in America when it was first discovered; and that the natives did not know how to form arches. But these assertions are erroneous. The remains of the ancient palaces of Tezucoco, and still more their vapour baths, show the ancient use of arches and vaults among the Mexicans. But the ignorance of this art would have been no proof of barbarity. Neither the Egyptians nor Babylonians understood the construction of arches.

M. de Paw affirms, that the palace of Montezuma was nothing else than a hut. But it is certain, from the affirmation of all the historians of Mexico, that the army under Cortes, consisting of 6400 men, was all lodged in the palace; and there remained still sufficient room for Montezuma and his attendants.

The advances which the Mexicans had made in the study of astronomy is perhaps the most surprising proof of their attention and sagacity; for it appears from Abbé Clavigero's history, that they not only counted 365 days to the year, but also knew of the excess of about six hours in the solar over the civil year, and remedied the difference by means of intercalary days.

Of American morality, the following exhortation of

illis ferventia urgeant. Nos igitur, qui ejusdem Domini nostri vices, licet indigni, gerimus in terris, et Oves gregis sui nobis committas, quae extra ejus Ovis sunt, ad ipsum Ovis toto nixu exquirimus, attendentes Indos ipsos, utpote veros homines, non solum Christianae Fidei capaces existere, sed, ut nobis innotuit, ad Fidem ipsam promptissime currere, ac volentes super his congruis remediis providere, predictos Indos et omnes alias gentes ad notitiam Christianorum in posterum deventuras, licet extra fidem Christi existant, sua libertate et dominio hujusmodi uti, et potiri, et gaudere libere, et licite posse, nec in servitutem redigi debere, ac quicquid fecus fieri contigerit irritum et inane, ipsosque Indos, et alias Gentes Verbi Dei praedicatione, et exemplo bonae vitae ad dictam Fidem Christi invitandos fore. Auctoritate Apostolica per praesentes litteras decernimus, et declaramus, non obstantibus praemis, ceterisque contrariis quibuscunque." Datum Romae anno 1537. IV. Non. Jun. Pontificatus nostri anno III. Questa, è non altra e quella famosa bolla, per la quale s'è fatto un sì grande schiamazzo.

⁶³ America. a Mexican to his son may serve as a specimen. "My son, who art come into the light from the womb of thy mother like a chicken from the egg, and like it art preparing to fly through the world, we know not how long Heaven will grant to us the enjoyment of that precious gem which we possess in thee; but however short the period, endeavour to live exactly, praying God continually to assist thee. He created thee: thou art his property. He is thy father, and loves thee still more than I do: repose in him thy thoughts, and day and night direct thy sighs to him. Reverence and salute thy elders, and hold no one in contempt. To the poor and distressed be not dumb, but rather use words of comfort. Honour all persons, particularly thy parents, to whom thou owest obedience, respect, and service. Guard against imitating the example of those wicked sons, who, like brutes that are deprived of reason, neither reverence their parents, listen to their instruction, nor submit to their correction; because whoever follows their steps will have an unhappy end, will die in a desperate or sudden manner, or will be killed and devoured by wild beasts.

"Mock not, my son, the aged or the imperfect. Scorn not him whom you see fall into some folly or transgression, nor make him reproaches; but restrain thyself, and beware lest thou fall into the same error which offends thee in another. Go not where thou art not called, nor interfere in that which does not concern thee. Endeavour to manifest thy good breeding in all thy words and actions. In conversation, do not lay thy hands upon another, nor speak too much, nor interrupt or disturb another's discourse. When any one discourses with thee, hear him attentively, and hold thyself in an easy attitude, neither playing with thy feet, nor putting thy mantle to thy mouth, nor spitting too often, nor looking about you here and there, nor rising up frequently, if thou art sitting; for such actions are indications of levity and low breeding."—He proceeds to mention several particular vices which are to be avoided, and concludes,—"Steal not, nor give thyself to gaming; otherwise thou wilt be a disgrace to thy parents, whom thou oughtest rather to honour for the education they have given thee. If thou wilt be virtuous, thy example will put the wicked to shame. No more, my son; enough hath been said in discharge of the duties of a father. With these counsels I wish to fortify thy mind. Refuse them not, nor act in contradiction to them; for on them thy life and all thy happiness depend."

⁶⁴ Notions of M. de Buffon concerning the degeneracy of animal nature in America. As ranging on the same side with the Abbé Clavigero, the ingenious Mr Jefferson deserves particular attention. This gentleman, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, &c. has taken occasion to combat the opinions of Buffon; and seems to have fully refuted them both by argument and facts. The French philosopher asserts, "That living nature is less active, less energetic, in the new world than in the old." He affirms, 1. That the animals common to both continents are smaller in America. 2. That those peculiar to the new are on an inferior scale. 3. That those which have been domesticated in both have degenerated in America. And, 4. That it exhibits fewer spe-

cies of living creatures. The cause of this he ascribes to the diminution of heat in America, and to the prevalence of humidity from the extension of its lakes and waters over a prodigious surface. In other words, he affirms, that heat is friendly and moisture adverse to the production and development of the larger quadrupeds.

The hypothesis, that moisture is unfriendly to animal growth, Mr Jefferson shows to be contradicted by observation and experience. It is by the assistance of heat and moisture that vegetables are elaborated from the elements. Accordingly we find, that the more humid climates produce plants in greater profusion than considered the dry. Vegetables are immediately or remotely the food of every animal; and, from the uniform operation of Nature's laws we discern, that, in proportion to the quantity of food, animals are not only multiplied in their numbers, but improved in their size. Of this last opinion is the count de Buffon himself, in another part of his work: "En general, il paroît que les pays un peu froids conviennent mieux à nos bœufs que les pays chauds, et qu'ils sont d'autant plus gros et plus grands que le climat est plus humide et plus abondant en paturages. Les bœufs de Danemarc, de la Podolie, de l'Ukraine, et de la Tartarie qu'habitent les Caimouques, sont les plus grands de tous." Here, then, a race of animals, and one of the largest too, has been increased in its dimensions by cold and dry moisture, in direct opposition to the hypothesis, which supposes that these two circumstances diminish animal bulk, and that it is their contraries, heat and dryness, which enlarge it. But to try the question on more general ground, let us take two portions of the earth, Europe and America for instance, sufficiently extensive to give operation to general causes; let us consider the circumstances peculiar to each, and observe their effect on animal nature. America, running through the torrid as well as temperate zone, has more heat collectively taken, than Europe. But Europe, according to our hypothesis, is the driest. They are equally adapted then to animal productions; each being endowed with one of those causes which bestriend animal growth, and with one which opposes it. Let us, then, take a comparative view of the quadrupeds of Europe and America, presenting them to the eye in three different tables; in one of which shall be enumerated those found in both countries; in a second, those found in one only; in a third, those which have been domesticated in both. To facilitate the comparison, let those of each table be arranged in gradation, according to their sizes, from the greatest to the smallest, so far as their sizes can be conjectured. The weights of the large animals shall be expressed in the English avoirdupois pound and its decimals; those of the smaller in the ounce and its decimals. Those which are marked thus *, are actual weights of particular subjects, deemed among the largest of their species. Those marked thus †, are furnished by judicious persons, well acquainted with the species, and flying, from conjecture only, what the largest individual they had seen would probably have weighed. The other weights are taken from Messrs Buffon and D'Aubenton, and are of such subjects as came casually to their hands for dissection.

* Comparative.

"Comparative View of the Quadrupeds of Europe and of America.

TABLE II. Aboriginals of one only.

"The result of this view is, that of 26 quadrupeds common to both countries, seven are said to be larger in America, seven of equal size, and 12 not sufficiently examined. So that the first table impeaches the first member of the assertion, that of the animals common to both countries the American are smallest, "Et cela sans aucune exception." It shows it not just, in all the latitude in which its author has advanced it, and probably not to such a degree as to found a distinction between the two countries.

"Proceeding to the second table, which arranges the animals found in one of the two countries only, M. de Buffon observes, that the tapir, the elephant of America, is but of the size of a small cow. To preserve our comparison, Mr Jefferson states the wild boar, the elephant of Europe, as little more than half that size. He has made an elk with round or cylindrical horns an animal of America, and peculiar to it; because he has seen many of them himself, and more of their horns; and because, from the best information, it is certain that in Virginia this kind of elk has abounded much, and still exists in smaller numbers. He makes the American hare or rabbit peculiar, believing it to be different from both the European animals of these denominations, and calling it therefore by its Algonquin name wabaw, to keep it distinct from these. Kalm is of the same opinion. The squirrels are denominated from a knowledge derived from daily sight of them, because with that the European appellations and descriptions seem irreconcilable. These are the only instances in which Mr Jefferson departs from the authority of M. de Buffon in the construction of this table; whom he takes for his ground-work, because he thinks him the best informed of any naturalist who has ever written. The result is, that there are 18 quadrupeds peculiar to Europe; more than four times as many, to wit 74, peculiar to America; that the first of these 74, the tapir, the largest of the animals peculiar to America, weighs more than the whole column of Europeans; and consequently this second table disproves the second member of the assertion, that the animals peculiar to the new world are on a smaller scale, so far as that assertion relied on European animals for support: and it is in full opposition to the theory which makes the animal volume to depend on the circumstances of heat and moisture.

"The third table comprehends those quadrupeds only which are domestic in both countries. That some of these, in some parts of America, have become less than their original stock, is doubtless true; and the reason is very obvious. In a thinly peopled country,

the spontaneous productions of the forests and waste fields are sufficient to support indifferently the domestic animals of the farmer, with a very little aid from him in the severest and scarcest season. He therefore finds it more convenient to receive them from the hand of Nature in that indifferent state, than to keep up their size by a care and nourishment which would cost him much labour. If, on this low fate, these animals dwindle, it is no more than they do in those parts of Europe where the poverty of the soil, or poverty of the owner, reduces them to the same scanty subsistence. It is the uniform effect of one and the same cause, whether acting on this or that side of the globe. It would be erring, therefore, against that rule of philosophy, which teaches us to ascribe like effects to like causes, should we impute this diminution of size in America to any imbecility or want of uniformity in the operations of nature. It may be affirmed with truth, that in those countries, and with those individuals of America, where necessity or curiosity has produced equal attention as in Europe to the nourishment of animals, the horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, of the one continent are as large as those of the other. There are particular instances, well attested, where individuals of America have imported good breeders from England, and have improved their size by care in the course of some years. And the weights actually known and stated in the third table, will suffice to show, that we may conclude, on probable grounds, that, with equal food and care, the climate of America will preserve the races of domestic animals as large as the European stock from which they are derived; and consequently that the third member of M. de Buffon's assertion, that the domestic animals are subject to degeneration from the climate of America, is as probably wrong as the first and second were certainly so.

That the last part of it is erroneous, which affirms, that the species of American quadrupeds are comparatively few, is evident from the tables taken all together; to which may be added the proof adduced by the Abbé Clavigero. According to Buffon's latest calculation, in his Époques de la Nature, there are 300 species of quadrupeds; and America, though it does not make more than a third part of the globe, contains, according to Clavigero, almost one half of the different species of its animals.

Of the human inhabitants of America, to whom the same hypothesis of degeneracy is extended, M. Buffon gives the following description: "Though the American savage be nearly of the same stature with men in the polished societies; yet this is not a sufficient exception to the general contraction of animated nature through-out the whole continent. In the savage, the organs of generation are small and feeble. He has no hair, no beard, no ardour for the female. Though nimbler than the European, because more accustomed to running, his strength is not so great. His sensations are less acute; and yet he is more timid and cowardly. He has no vivacity, no activity of mind. The activity of his body is not so much an exercise or spontaneous motion, as a necessary action produced by want. Destroy his appetite for victuals and drink, and you will at once annihilate the active principle of all his movements: He remains in stupid repose, on his limbs or couch, for the whole days. It is easy to discover the cause of the

America. scattered life of savages, and of their estrangement from society. They have been refused the most precious spark of Nature's fire: They have no ardour for women, and, of course, no love to mankind. Unacquainted with the most lively and most tender of all attachments, their other sensations of this nature are cold and languid. Their love to parents and children is extremely weak. The bounds of the most intimate of all societies, that of the same family, are feeble; and one family has no attachment to another. Hence no union, no republic, no social state, can take place among them. The physical cause of love gives rise to the morality of their manners. Their heart is frozen, their society cold, and their empire cruel. They regard their females as servants destined to labour, or as beasts of burden, whom they load unmercifully with the produce of their hunting, and oblige, without pity or gratitude, to perform labours which often exceed their strength. They have few children, and pay little attention to them. Every thing must be referred to the first cause: They are indifferent, because they are weak; and this indifference to the sex is the original stain which disgraces Nature, prevents her from expanding, and, by destroying the germs of life, cuts the root of society. Hence man makes no exception to what has been advanced. Nature, by denying him the faculty of love, has abused and contracted him more than any other animal."

A humiliating picture indeed! but than which, Mr. Jefferson assures us, never one was more unlike the original. M. Buffon grants, that their stature is the same as that of the men of Europe; and he might have admitted, that the Iroquois were larger, and the Lenapi or Delawares taller, than people in Europe generally are: But he says their organs of generation are smaller and weaker than those of Europeans; which is not a fact. And as to their want of beard, this error has been already noticed (N^o 49. supra.)

"They have no ardour for their females." It is true, they do not indulge those excesses, nor discover that fondness, which are customary in Europe; but this is not owing to a defect in nature, but to manners. Their soul is wholly bent upon war. This is what procures them glory among the men, and makes them the admiration of the women. To this they are educated from their earliest youth. When they pursue game with ardour, when they bear the fatigues of the chase, when they sustain and suffer patiently hunger and cold, it is not so much for the sake of the game they pursue, as to convince their parents and the council of the nation, that they are fit to be enrolled in the number of the warriors. The songs of the women, the dance of the warriors, the sage counsel of the chiefs, the tales of the old, the triumphant entry of the warriors returning with success from battle, and the respect paid to those who distinguish themselves in battle, and in subduing their enemies; in short, every thing they see or hear tends to inspire them with an ardent desire for military fame. If a young man were to discover a fondness for women before he has been to war, he would become the contempt of the men, and the scorn and ridicule of the women: or were he to indulge himself with a captive taken in war, and much more were he to offer violence in order to gratify his lust,

he would incur indelible disgrace. The seeming frigidity of the men, therefore, is the effect of manners, and not a defect of nature. They are neither more defective in ardour, nor more impotent with the female, than are the whites reduced to the same diet and exercise.

"They raise few children."—They indeed raise fewer children than we do; the causes of which are to be found, not in a difference of nature, but of circumstance. The women very frequently attending the men in their parties of war and of hunting, childbearing becomes extremely inconvenient to them. It is said, therefore, that they have learned the practice of procuring abortion by the use of some vegetable; and that it even extends to prevent conception for a considerable time after. During these parties they are exposed to numerous hazards, to excessive exertions, to the greatest extremities of hunger. Even at their homes, the nation depends for food, through a certain part of every year, on the gleanings of the forest; that is, they experience a famine once in every year. With all animals, if the female be badly fed, or not fed at all, her young perish; and if both male and female be reduced to like want, generation becomes less active, less productive. To the obstacles, then, of want and hazard, which Nature has opposed to the multiplication of wild animals, for the purpose of restraining their numbers within certain bounds, those of labour and of voluntary abortion are added with the Indian. No wonder, then, if they multiply less than we do. Where food is regularly supplied, a single farm will show more of cattle than a whole country of forests can of buffaloes. The same Indian women, when married to white traders, who feed them and their children plentifully and regularly, who exempt them from excessive drudgery, who keep them stationary and unexposed to accident, produce and raise as many children as the white women. Infancies are known, under these circumstances, of their rearing a dozen children.

Neither do they seem to be "deficient in natural affection." On the contrary, their sensibility is keen, even the warriors weeping most bitterly on the loss of their children; though in general they endeavour to appear superior to human events.

Their friendships are strong, and faithful to the uttermost extremity. A remarkable instance of this appeared in the case of the late Col. Byrd, who was sent to the Cherokee nation to transact some business with them. It happened that some of our disorderly people had just killed one or two of that nation. It was therefore proposed in the council of the Cherokees, that Col. Byrd should be put to death, in revenge for the loss of their countrymen. Among them was a chief, called Silouee, who, on some former occasion, had contracted an acquaintance and friendship with Col. Byrd: He came to him every night in his tent, and told him not to be afraid, they should not kill him. After many days deliberation, however, the determination was, contrary to Silouee's expectation, that Byrd should be put to death, and some warriors were despatched as executioners. Silouee attended them; and when they entered the tent, he threw himself between them and Byrd, and said to the warriors, "This man is my friend: before you get at him, you must kill him."

America. kill me." On which they returned; and the council respected the principle so much as to recede from their determination.

That "they are timorous and cowardly," is a character with which there is little reason to charge them, when we recollect the manner in which the Iroquois met Mont. —, who marched into their country; in which the old men, who scorned to fly, or to survive the capture of their town, braved death like the old Romans in the time of the Gauls, and in which they soon after revenged themselves by sacking and destroying Montreal. In short, the Indian is brave, when an enterprise depends on bravery; education with him making the point of honour consist in the destruction of an enemy by stratagem, and in the preservation of his own person free from injury: or perhaps this is nature, while it is education which teaches us to honour force more than fine. He will defend himself against an host of enemies, always choosing to be killed rather than to surrender, though it be to the whites, who he knows will treat him well. In other situations also, he meets death with more deliberation, and endures tortures with a firmness unknown almost to religious enthusiasm among us.

Much less are they to be characterized as a people of no vivacity, and who are excited to action or motion only by the calls of hunger and thirst. Their dances, in which they so much delight, and which to a European would be the most severe exercise, fully contradict this; not to mention their fatiguing marches, and the toil they voluntarily and cheerfully undergo in their military expeditions. It is true, that when at home they do not employ themselves in labour or the culture of the soil: but this, again, is the effect of customs and manners which have assigned that to the province of the women. But it is said, "they are averse to society and a social life." Can any thing be more inapplicable than this to people who always live in towns or in clans? Or can they be said to have no republique, who conduct all their affairs in national councils; who pride themselves in their national character; who consider an insult or injury done to an individual by a stranger as done to the whole, and resent it accordingly?

To form a just estimate of their genius and mental powers, Mr. Jefferson observes, more facts are wanting, and great allowance is to be made for those circumstances of their situation which call for a display of particular talents only. This done, we shall probably find that the Americans are formed, in mind as well as in body, on the same model with the homo sapiens Europæus. The principles of their society forbidding all compulsion, they are to be led to duty and to enterprise by personal influence and persuasion. Hence eloquence in council, bravery and address in war, become the foundations of all consequence with them. To these acquirements all their faculties are directed. Of their bravery and address in war we have multiplied proofs, because we have been the subjects on which they were exercised. Of their eminence in oratory we have fewer examples, because it is displayed chiefly in their own councils. Some, however, we have of very superior lustre. We may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to the

speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, to Lord Dunmore America. when governor of this state. The story is as follows; of which, and of the speech, the authenticity is unquestionable. In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery and murder were committed on an inhabitant of the frontiers of Virginia by two Indians of the Shawanee tribe. The neighbouring whites, according to their custom, undertook to punish this outrage in a summary way. Colonel Cresp, a man infamous for the many murders he had committed on those much-injured people, collected a party, and proceeded down the Kanaway in quest of vengeance. Unfortunately a canoe of women and children, with one man only, was seen coming from the opposite shore, unarmed, and unsuspecting any hostile attack from the whites. Cresp and his party concealed themselves on the bank of the river; and the moment the canoe reached the shore, singled out their objects, and at one fire killed every person in it. This happened to be the family of Logan, who had long been distinguished as a friend of the whites. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the same year, a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanaway, between the collected forces of the Shawanees, Mingoes, and Delawares, and a detachment of the Virginian militia. The Indians were defeated, and sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants; but, lest the sincerity of a treaty should be distrusted from which he distinguished a chief absented himself, he sent by a messenger the following speech, to be delivered to Lord Dunmore:—I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, of Indian and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, Logan is the friend of white men. I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresp, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have fought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace; but do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."

To the preceding anecdotes in favour of the American character, may be added the following by Dr. Benjamin Franklin. The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors: when old, counsellors; for all their government is by the council or advice of the sages. Hence they generally study oratory; the best speaker having the most influence. The Indian women till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public transactions. These employments of men and women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem

75
Of their
courage.
(See also
Nos 54, 55
supra)

America esteem slavish and base; and the learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless.

Having frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men sit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmost. The business of the women is to take exact notice of what passes; imprint it in their memories, for they have no writing, and communicate it to their children. They are the records of the council, and they preserve tradition of the stipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, when we compare with our writings, we always find exact. He that would speak rises. The rest observe a profound silence. When he has finished, and sits down, they leave him five or six minutes to recollect, that if he has omitted any thing he intended to say, or has any thing to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in common conversation, is reckoned highly indecent.

⁷⁹ Politeness and civility of the American Indians.
The politeness of these savages in conversation is, indeed, carried to excess; since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is asserted in their presence. By this means they indeed avoid disputes; but then it becomes difficult to know their minds, or what impression you make upon them. The missionaries who have attempted to convert them to Christianity, all complain of this as one of the greatest difficulties of their mission. The Indians hear with patience the truths of the gospel explained to them, and give their usual tokens of assent and approbation; but this by no means implies conviction; it is mere civility.

When any of them come into our towns, our people are apt to crowd round them, gaze upon them, and incommodate them where they desire to be private; this they esteem great rudeness, and the effect of the want of instruction in the rules of civility and good manners. "We have (say they) as much curiosity as you; and when you come into our towns, we wish for opportunities of looking at you; but for this purpose we hide ourselves behind bushes where you are to pass, and never intrude ourselves into your company."

⁸⁰ Their hospitality.
Their manner of entering one another's villages has likewise its rules. It is reckoned uncivil in travelling strangers to enter a village abruptly, without giving notice of their approach. Therefore, as soon as they arrive within hearing, they stop and holla, remaining there till invited to enter. Two old men usually come out to them and lead them in. There is in every village a vacant dwelling, called the strangers house. Here they are placed, while the old men go round from hut to hut, acquainting the inhabitants that strangers are arrived, who are probably hungry and weary; and every one sends them what he can spare of victuals, and skins to repose on. When the strangers are refreshed, pipes and tobacco are brought; and then, but not before, conversation begins, with inquiries who they are, whither bound, what news, &c. and it usually ends with offers of service; if the strangers have occasion for guides, or any necessaries for continuing their journey; and nothing is exacted for the entertainment.

The same hospitality, esteemed among them as a
Vol. II. Part I.

principal virtue, is practised by private persons; of which Conrad Weiler, the interpreter, gave Dr Franklin the following instance: He had been naturalized among the Six Nations, and spoke well the Mohock language. In going through the Indian country to carry a message from our governor to the council at Onondaga, he called at the habitation of Canastetego, an old acquaintance, who embraced him, spread furs for him to sit on, placed before him some boiled beans and venison, and mixed some rum and water for his drink. When he was well refreshed, and had lit his pipe, Canastetego began to converse with him; asked how he had fared the many years since they had seen each other, whence he then came, what had occasioned the journey, &c. Conrad answered all his questions, and when the discourse began to flag, the Indian, to continue it, said, "Conrad, you have lived long among the white people, and know something of their customs; I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed, that once in seven days they shut up their shops, and assemble all in the great house; tell me what it is for!—What do they do there?" "They meet there (says Conrad) to hear and learn good things." "I do not doubt (says the Indian) that they tell you so; they have told me the same: but I doubt the truth of what they say, and I will tell you my reasons. I went lately to Albany to sell my skins, and buy blankets, knives, powder, rum, &c. You know I generally used to deal with Hans Hanson; but I was a little inclined this time to try some other merchants. However, I called first upon Hans, and asked him what he would give for beaver. He said he could not give more than 4s. a pound; but (says he) I cannot talk on business now; this is the day when we meet together to learn good things, and I am going to the meeting. So I thought to myself, since I cannot do any business to-day, I may as well go to the meeting too; and I went with him.—There stood up a man in black, and began to talk to the people very angrily. I did not understand what he said; but perceiving that he looked much at me and at Hanson, I imagined he was angry at seeing me there: so I went out, sat down near the house, struck fire, and lit my pipe, waiting till the meeting should break up. I thought too, that the man had mentioned something of beaver, and I suspected that it might be the subject of their meeting. So when they came out, I accosted my merchant.—Well Hans (says I), I hope you have agreed to give more than 4s. a pound?" "No (says he), I cannot give so much, I cannot give more than 3s. 6d." "I then spoke to several other dealers, but they all sung the same song, three and sixpence, three and sixpence. This made it clear to me that my suspicion was right; and that whatever they pretended of meeting to learn good things, the real purpose was, to consult how to cheat Indians in the price of beaver. Consider but a little, Conrad, and you must be of my opinion. If they met so often to learn good things, they certainly would have learned some before this time. But they are still ignorant. You know our practice. If a white man, in travelling through our country, enters one of our cabins, we all treat him as I treat you; we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, and give him meat and drink, that he may allay his thirst and hunger; and we spread furs

America. furs for him to rest and sleep on: we demand nothing in return. But if I go into a white man's house at Albany, and ask for victuals and drink, they say, Where is your money? And if I have none, they say, Get out, you Indian dog. You see they have not yet learned those little good things that we need no meeting to be instructed in; because our mothers taught them to us when we were children; and therefore it is impossible their meetings should be, as they say, for any such purpose, or have any such effect; they are only to contrive the cheating of Indians in the price of beaver."

THE next question that occurs is, Whether the peculiarities of the Americans, or the disparity between them and the inhabitants of Europe, afford sufficient grounds for determining them, as some have done, to be a race of men radically different from all others?

In this question, to avoid being tedious, we shall confine ourselves to what has been advanced by Lord Kames; who is of opinion, that there are many different species of men, as well as of other animals; and gives a hypothesis, whereby he pretends his opinion may be maintained in a consistency with revelation.

"If (says he) the only rule afforded by nature for classing animals can be depended on, there are different races of men as well as of dogs: a mastiff differs not more from a spaniel, than a white man from a negro, or a Laplander from a Dane. And if we have any faith in Providence, it ought to be so. Plants were created of different kinds, to fit them for different climates; and so were brute animals. Certain it is, that all men are not fitted equally for every climate. There is scarce a climate but what is natural to some men, where they prosper and flourish; and there is not a climate but where some men degenerate. Doth not then analogy lead us to conclude, that, as there are different climates on the face of this globe, so there are different races of men fitted for these different climates?

"M. Buffon, from the rule, That animals which can procreate together, and whose progeny can also procreate, are of one species; concludes, that all men are of one race or species; and endeavours to support that favourite opinion, by ascribing to the climate, to food, or to other accidental causes, all the varieties that are found among men. But is he seriously of opinion, that any operation of climate, or of other accidental cause, can account for the copper colour and smooth chin universal among the Americans; the prominence of the pudenda universal among the Hottentot women; or the black nipple no less universal among the female Samoyedes?—It is in vain to ascribe to the climate the low stature of the Esquimaux, the smallness of their feet, or the overgrown size of their heads. It is equally in vain to ascribe to climate the low stature of the Laplanders, or their ugly visage. The black colour of negroes, thick lips, flat nose, crimped woolly hair, and rank smell, distinguish them from every other race of men. The Abyssinians, on the contrary, are tall and well made, their complexion a brown olive, features well proportioned, eyes large and of a sparkling black, thin lips, a nose rather high than flat. There is no such difference of climate between Abyssinia and Negroland as to produce these striking differences.

"Nor shall our author's ingenious hypothesis concerning the extremities of heat and cold, purchase him

impunity with respect to the fallow complexion of the Samoyedes, Laplanders, and Greenlanders. The Finlanders, and northern Norwegians, live in a climate not less cold than that of the people mentioned; and yet are fair beyond other Europeans. I say more, there are many instances of races of people preserving their original colour, in climates very different from their own; but not a single instance of the contrary, as far as I can learn. There have been four complete generations of negroes in Pennsylvania, without any visible change of colour; they continue jet black, as originally. Those who ascribe all to the sun, ought to consider how little probable it is, that the colour it impresses on the parents should be communicated to their infant children, who never saw the sun: I should be as soon induced to believe with a German naturalist, whose name has escaped me, that the negro colour is owing to an ancient custom in Africa, of dyeing the skin black. Let a European, for years, expose himself to the sun in a hot climate, till he be quite brown; his children will nevertheless have the same complexion with those in Europe. From the action of the sun, is it possible to explain, why a negro, like a European, is born with a ruddy skin, which turns jet black the eighth or ninth day?"

Our author next proceeds to draw some arguments for the existence of different races of men, from the various tempers and dispositions of different nations; which he reckons to be specific differences, as well as those of colour, stature, &c. and having summed up his evidence he concludes thus: "Upon summing up the whole particulars mentioned above, would one hesitate a moment to adopt the following opinion, were there no counterbalancing evidence, viz. 'That God created many pairs of the human race, differing from each other, both externally and internally; that he fitted those pairs for different climates, and placed each pair in its proper climate; that the peculiarities of the original pairs were preserved entire in their descendants; who, having no assistance but their natural talents, were left to gather knowledge from experience: and, in particular, were left (each tribe) to form a language for itself; that signs were sufficient for the original pairs, without any language but what nature suggests; and that a language was formed gradually as a tribe increased in numbers, and in different occupations, to make speech necessary?' But this opinion, however plausible, we are not permitted to adopt; being taught a different lesson by revelation, viz. That God created but a single pair of the human species. Though we cannot doubt the authority of Moses, yet his account of the creation of man is not a little puzzling, as it seems to contradict every one of the facts mentioned above. According to that account, different races of men were not formed, nor were men formed originally for different climates. All men must have spoken the same language, viz. that of our first parents. And what of all seems the most contradictory to that account, is the savage state: Adam, as Moses informs us, was endowed by his Maker with an eminent degree of knowledge; and he certainly was an excellent preceptor to his children and their progeny, among whom he lived many generations. Whence then the degeneracy of all men into the savage state? To account for that dismal catastrophe,

8: Lord Kames's arguments for different species.

America. ⁸² His hypo-
thesis con-
cerning
the origin
of the dif-
ferent spe-
cies,
tastrophe, mankind must have suffered some terrible con-
vulsion. That terrible convulsion is revealed to us in the
history of the tower of Babel contained in the 11th
chapter of Genesis, which is, 'That, for many cen-
turies after the deluge, the whole earth was of one
' language, and of one speech; that they united to
' build a city on a plain in the land of Shinar, with a
' tower, whose top might reach unto heaven; that the
' Lord, beholding the people to be one, and to have
' all one language, and that nothing would be re-
' strained from them which they imagined to do, con-
' founded their language that they might not under-
' stand one another, and scattered them abroad upon
' the face of all the earth.' Here light breaks forth
in the midst of darkness. By confounding the language
of men, and scattering them abroad upon the face of
all the earth, they were rendered savages. And to har-
den them for their new habitations, it was necessary
that they should be divided into different kinds, fitted
for different climates. Without an immediate change
of constitution, the builders of Babel could not possibly
have subsisted in the burning region of Guinea, nor in
the frozen region of Lapland; houses not being prepa-
red, nor any other convenience to protect them against
a destructive climate."

⁸³
incomplete. We may first remark, on his Lordship's hypothesis,
that it is evidently incomplete; for, allowing the human
race to have been divided into different species at the
confusion of languages, and that each species was ad-
apted to a particular climate; by what means were
they to get to the climates proper for them, or how
were they to know that such climates existed? How
was an American, for instance, when languishing in an
improper climate at Babel, to get to the land of the
Amazons, or the banks of the Oronoko, in his own
country? or how was he to know that these places
were more proper for him than others?—If, indeed
we take the Scripture phrase, "The Lord scattered
them abroad upon the face of all the earth," in a cer-
tain sense, we may account for it. If we suppose that
the different species were immediately carried off by
a whirlwind, or other supernatural means, to their pro-
per countries, the difficulty will vanish: but if this is
his Lordship's interpretation, it is certainly a very sin-
gular one.

⁸⁴
General
principles
to be kept
in view in
reasoning
on this
subject. Before entering upon a consideration of the particu-
lar arguments used by our author for proving the di-
versity of species in the human race, it will be proper
to lay down the following general principles, which
may serve as axioms. (1.) When we assert a multi-
plicity of species in the human race; we bring in a su-
pernatural cause to solve a natural phenomenon: for
these species are supposed to be the immediate work
of the Deity. (2.) No person has a right to call any
thing the immediate effect of omnipotence, unless by
express revelation from the Deity, or from a certainty
that no natural cause is sufficient to produce the ef-
fect. The reason is plain. The Deity is invisible, and
so are many natural causes; when we see an effect there-
fore, of which the cause does not manifest itself, we
cannot know whether the immediate cause is the Deity
or an invisible natural power. An example of this we
have in the phenomena of thunder and earthquakes,
which were often ascribed immediately to the Deity,
but are now discovered to be the effects of electricity.

(3.) No person can assert natural causes to be insuffi-
cient to produce such and such effects, unless he per-
fectly knows all these causes and the limits of their
power in all possible cases; and this no man has ever
known or can know.

By keeping in view these principles, which we hope
are self-evident, we will easily see Lord Kames's ar-
guments to consist entirely in a petitio principii.—In
substance they are all reduced to this single sentence:
"Natural philosophers have been hitherto unsuccessful
in their endeavours to account for the differences ob-
served among mankind, therefore these differences can-
not be accounted for from natural causes."

⁸⁵
His Lordship, however, tells us in the passages al-
ready quoted, that "a massiff differs not more from a
spaniel, than a Laplander from a Dane;" that "it is
vain to ascribe to climate the low stature of the Lap-
landers, or their ugly visage."—Yet, in a note on the
word Laplanders, he subjoins, that, "by late accounts
it appears, that the Laplanders are only degenerated
Tartars; and that they and the Hungarians originally
sprung from the same breed of men, and from the same
country."—The Hungarians are generally handsome
and well made, like Danes, or like other people. The
Laplanders, he tells us, differ as much from them as a
massiff from a spaniel. Natural causes, therefore, ac-
cording to Lord Kames himself, may cause two indi-
viduals of the same species of mankind differ from each
other as much as a massiff does from a spaniel.

⁸⁶
While we are treating this subject of colour, it may
not be amiss to observe, that a very remarkable differ-
ence of colour may accidentally happen to individuals
of the same species. In the isthmus of Darien, a sin-
gular race of men has been discovered.—They are of
low stature, of a feeble make, and incapable of endur-
ing fatigue. Their colour is a dead milk white; not
resembling that of fair people among Europeans, but
without any bluish or sanguine complexion. Their skin
is covered with a fine hairy down of a chalky white;
the hair of their heads, their eyebrows, and eyelashes,
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 moonlight, and
are most active and gay in the night. Among the ne-
groes of Africa, as well as the natives of the Indian
islands, a small number of these people are produced.
They are called Albinos by the Portuguese, and Kack-
erlakes by the Dutch.

⁸⁷
This race of men is not indeed permanent; but it is
sufficient to show, that mere colour is by no means the
characteristic of a certain species of mankind. The dif-
ference of colour in these individuals is undoubtedly
owing to a natural cause. To constitute, then, a race
of men of this colour, it would only be necessary that
this cause, which at present is merely accidental, should
become permanent, and we cannot know but it may be
so in some parts of the world.

⁸⁸
If a difference in colour is no characteristic of a dif-
ferent species of mankind, much less can a difference
in stature be thought so. In the southern parts of A-
merica, there are said to be a race of men exceeding
the common size in height and strength*. This ac-
count, however, is doubted of by some: but be that
as it will, it is certain that the Esquimaux are as much
under the common size, as the Patagonians are said to
be.

America. be above it. Nevertheless we are not to imagine, that either of these are specific differences; seeing the Laplanders and Hungarians are both of the same species, and yet the former are generally almost a foot shorter than the latter; and if a difference of climate, or other accidental causes, can make the people of one country a foot shorter than the common size of mankind, undoubtedly accidental causes of a contrary nature may make those of another country a foot taller than other men.

89
Different causes contribute towards an alteration in colour.

Though the sun has undoubtedly a share in the production of the swarthy colour of those nations which are most exposed to his influence; yet the manner of living to which people are accustomed, their victuals, their employment, &c. must contribute very much to a difference of complexion. There are some kinds of colouring roots, which if mixed with the food of certain animals, will tinge even their bones of a yellow colour. It cannot be thought any great degree of credulity to infer from this, that if these roots were mixed with the food of a white man, they might, without a miracle, tinge his skin of a yellow colour. If a man and woman were both to use food of this kind for a length of time, till they became as it were radically dyed, it is impossible, without the intervention of divine power, or of some extraordinary natural cause, but their children must be of the same colour: and was the same kind of food to be continued for several generations, it is more than probable that this colour might resist the continued use of any kind of food whatever. See further the article COMPLEXION.

90
Habit capable of altering the instinct of animals.

Of this indeed we have no examples, but we have an example of changes much more wonderful. It is allowed on all hands, that it is more easy to work a change upon the body of a man, or any other animal, than upon his mind. A man that is naturally choleric may indeed learn to prevent the bad effects of his passion by reason, but the passion itself will remain as immutable as his colour. But to reason in a manner similar to Lord Kames; though a man should be naturally choleric, or subject to any other passion, why should his children be so?—This way of reasoning, however plausible, is by no means conclusive, as will appear from the following passage in Mr Forster's Voyage.

Voyage round the World, vol. i. p. 134.

June 9th. "The officers who could not yet relish their salt provisions after the refreshments of New Zealand, had ordered their black dog, mentioned p. 135, to be killed: this day, therefore, we dined for the first time on a leg of it roasted; which tasted so exactly like mutton, that it was absolutely undistinguishable. In our cold countries, where animal food is so much used, and where to be carnivorous perhaps lies in the nature of men, or is indispensably necessary to the preservation of their health and strength, it is strange that there should exist a Jewish aversion to dogs flesh, when hogs, the most uncleanly of all animals, are eaten without scruple. Nature seems expressly to have intended them for this use, by making their offspring so very numerous, and their increase so quick and frequent. It may be objected, that the exalted degree of instinct which we observe in our dogs, inspires us with great unwillingness to kill and eat them. But it is owing to the time we spend on the education of dogs, that they acquire those eminent qualities

which attach them so much to us. The natural qualities of our dogs may receive a wonderful improvement; but education must give its assistance, without which the human mind itself, though capable of an immense expansion, remains in a very contracted state. In New Zealand, and (according to former accounts of voyages) in the tropical isles of the South sea, the dogs are the most stupid dull animals imaginable, and do not seem to have the least advantage in point of sagacity over our sheep, which are commonly made the emblems of silliness. In the former country they are fed upon fish, in the latter on vegetables, and both these diets may have served to alter their disposition. Education may perhaps likewise graft new instincts; the New Zealand dogs are fed on the remains of their master's meals; they eat the bones of other dogs; and the puppies become true cannibals from their birth. We had a young New Zealand puppy on board, which had certainly had no opportunity of tasting any thing but the mother's milk before we purchased it: however, it eagerly devoured a portion of the flesh and bones of the dog on which we dined to-day; while several others of the European breed taken on board at the Cape, turned from it without touching it.

"On the 4th of August, a young bitch, of the terrier breed, taken on board at the Cape of Good Hope, and covered by a spaniel, brought ten young ones, one of which was dead. The New Zealand dog mentioned above, which devoured the bones of the roasted dog, now fell upon the dead puppy, and ate it with a ravenous appetite. This is a proof how far education may go in producing and propagating new instincts in animals. European dogs are never fed on the meat of their own species, but rather seem to abhor it. The New Zealand dogs, in all likelihood, are trained up from their earliest age to eat the remains of their master's meals: they are therefore used to feed upon fish, their own species, and perhaps human flesh; and what was only owing to a habit at first, may have become instinct by length of time. This was remarkable in our cannibal dog; for he came on board so young, that he could not have been weaned long enough to have acquired a habit of devouring his own species, and much less of eating human flesh; however, one of our seamen having cut his finger, held it out to the dog, who fell to greedily, licked it, and then began to bite it."

From this account it appears, that even the instincts of animals are not unchangeable by natural causes; and if these causes are powerful enough to change the dispositions of succeeding generations, much more may we suppose them capable of making any possible alteration in the external appearance.

We are not here necessitated to confine ourselves to confirmed observations made on brute animals. The Franks are by an observation on the production of one general character, formed by some natural cause from a mixture of many different nations.—They were a motley multitude, consisting of various German nations dwelling beyond the Rhine: who, uniting in defence of their common liberty, took thence the name of Franks; the word frank signifying in their language, as it still does in ours, free. Among them the following nations were mentioned, viz. the Aetuarii, Channavi, Brucleri, Sallii, Frissi, Chausi, Amawarii, and Catti. We cannot suppose

America. suppose one character to belong to so many different nations; yet it is certain, that the Franks were nationally characterized as treacherous; and so deeply seems this quality to have been rooted in their nature, that their descendants have not got quite free of it in 1500 years. It is in vain, then to talk of different races of men, either from their colour, size, or prevailing dispositions, seeing we have undeniable proofs that all these may be changed, in the most remarkable manner, by natural causes, without any miraculous interposition of the Deity.

THE next question, then, which presents itself is, From what part of the old world America has most probably been peopled?

92
Of the peo-
pling of
America. Discoveries long ago made inform us, that an intercourse between the old continent and America might be carried on with facility from the north-west extremities of Europe and the north-east boundaries of Asia. In the ninth century the Norwegians discovered Greenland, and planted a colony there. The communication with that country was renewed in the last century by Moravian missionaries, in order to propagate their doctrines in that bleak and uncultivated region. By them we are informed that the north-west coast of Greenland is separated from America by a very narrow strait; that at the bottom of the bay it is highly probable that they are united; that the Esquimaux of America perfectly resemble the Greenlanders in their aspect, dress, and mode of living; and that a Moravian missionary, well acquainted with the language of Greenland, having visited the country of the Esquimaux, found, to his astonishment, that they spoke the same language with the Greenlanders, and were in every respect the same people. The same species of animals, too, are found in the contiguous regions. The bear, the wolf, the fox, the hare, the deer, the roebuck, the elk, frequent the forests of North America, as well as those in the north of Europe.

Other discoveries have proved, that if the two continents of Asia and America be separated at all, it is only by a narrow strait. From this part of the old continent, also, inhabitants may have passed into the new; and the resemblance between the Indians of America and the eastern inhabitants of Asia, would induce us to conjecture that they have a common origin. This is the opinion adopted by Dr Robertson in his History of America*, where we find it accompanied with the following narrative.

“While those immense regions which stretched eastward from the river Oby to the sea of Kamtschatka were unknown, or imperfectly explored, the north-east extremities of our hemisphere were supposed to be so far distant from any part of the new world, that it was not easy to conceive how any communication should have been carried on between them. But the Russians, having subjected the western part of Siberia to their empire, gradually extended their knowledge of that vast country, by advancing towards the east into unknown provinces. These were discovered by hunters in their excursions after game, or by soldiers employed in levying the taxes; and the court of Moscow estimated the importance of those countries only by the small addition which they made to its revenue. At length, Peter the Great ascended the Russian throne: His en-

lightened comprehensive mind, intent upon every circumstance that could aggrandise his empire, or render his reign illustrious, discerned consequences of these discoveries, which had escaped the observation of his ignorant predecessors. He perceived that, in proportion as the regions of Asia extended towards the east, they must approach nearer to America; that the communication between the continents, which had long been searched for in vain, would probably be found in this quarter; and that, by opening this intercourse, some part of the wealth and commerce of the western world might be made to flow into his dominions by a new channel. Such an object suited a genius that delighted in grand schemes. Peter drew up instructions with his own hands for prosecuting this design, and gave orders for carrying it into execution.

“His successors adopted his ideas, and pursued his plan. The officers whom the Russian court employed in this service, had to struggle with so many difficulties, that their progress was extremely slow. Encouraged by some faint traditions among the people of Siberia concerning a successful voyage in the year 1648 round the north-east promontory of Asia, they attempted to follow the same course. Vessels were fitted out, with this view, at different times, from the rivers Lena and Kolyma; but in a frozen ocean, which nature seems not to have destined for navigation, they were exposed to many disasters, without being able to accomplish their purpose. No vessel fitted out by the Russian court ever doubled this formidable cape; we are indebted for what is known of those extreme regions of Asia, to the discoveries made in excursions by land. In all those provinces, an opinion prevails, that countries of great extent and fertility lie at no considerable distance from their own coasts. These the Russians imagined to be part of America; and several circumstances concurred not only in confirming them in this belief, but in persuading them that some portion of that continent could not be very remote. Trees of various kinds, unknown in those naked regions of Asia, are driven upon the coast by an easterly wind. By the same wind floating ice is brought thither in a few days; flights of birds arrive annually from the same quarter; and a tradition obtains among the inhabitants, of an intercourse formerly carried on with some countries situated to the east.

“After weighing all these particulars, and comparing the position of the countries in Asia which they had discovered, with such parts in the north-west of America as were already known; the Russian court formed a plan, which would have hardly occurred to any nation less accustomed to engage in arduous undertakings and to contend with great difficulties. Orders were issued to build two vessels at Ochotz, in the sea of Kamtschatka, to sail on a voyage of discovery. Though that dreary uncultivated region furnished nothing that could be of use in constructing them but some larch trees: though not only the iron, the cordage, the sails, and all the numerous articles requisite for their equipment, but the provisions for victualling them, were to be carried through the immense deserts of Siberia, along rivers of difficult navigation, and roads almost impassable, the mandate of the sovereign, and the perseverance of the people, at last surmounted every obstacle. Two vessels were finished; and, under the command

America command of the captains Behring and Tschirikow, failed from Kamtschatka in quest of the new world, in a quarter where it had never been approached. They shaped their course towards the east; and though a storm soon separated the vessels, which never rejoined, and many disasters befell them, the expectations from the voyage were not altogether frustrated. Each of the commanders discovered land, which to them appeared to be part of the American continent; and, according to their observations, it seems to be situated within a few degrees of the north-west coast of California. Each set some of his people ashore: but in one place the inhabitants fled as the Russians approached; in another, they carried off those who landed, and destroyed their boats. The violence of the weather, and the distress of their crews, obliged both to quit this inhospitable coast. In their return they touched at several islands, which stretch in a chain from east to west between the country which they had discovered and the coast of Asia. They had some intercourse with the natives, who seemed to them to resemble the North Americans. They presented to the Russians the calumet, or pipe of peace, which is a symbol of friendship universal among the people of North America, and a usage of arbitrary institution peculiar to them."

94 Reasons for supposing the two continents to have been once joined. The more recent and accurate discoveries of the illustrious navigator Cook, and his successor Clerke, have brought the matter still nearer to certainty. The sea, from the south of Behring's straits to the crescent of isles between Asia and America, is very shallow. It deepens from these straits (as the British seas do from those of Dover) till soundings are lost in the Pacific ocean; but that does not take place but to the south of the isles. Between them and the straits is an increase from twelve to fifty-four fathoms, except only off St Thaddeus Nos, where there is a channel of greater depth. From the volcanic disposition, it has been judged probable, not only that there was a separation of the continents at the straits of Behring, but that the whole space from the isles to that small opening had once been occupied by land; and that the fury of the watery element, actuated by that of fire, had, in most remote times, subverted and overwhelmed the tract, and left the islands monumental fragments.

95 Probable cause of their subsequent separation. Without adopting all the fancies of Buffon, there can be no doubt, as the Abbé Clavigero observes, that our planet has been subject to great vicissitudes, since the deluge. Ancient and modern histories confirm the truth which Ovid has sung in the name of Pythagoras:

Video ego quod fuerat quondam solidissima tellus,
Effe fretum; vidi factas ex aequore terras.

At present they plough those lands over which ships formerly sailed, and now they sail over lands which were formerly cultivated; earthquakes have swallowed some lands, and subterraneous fires have thrown up others: the rivers have formed new soil with their mud; the sea retreating from the shores has lengthened the land in some places, and advancing in others has diminished it; it has separated some territories which were formerly united, and formed new straits and gulfs. We have examples of all these revolutions in the past century. Sicily was united to the continent of Naples, as the island Euboea to Recchia. Diodorus, Strabo, and other ancient authors, say

the same thing of Spain and Africa, and affirm, that by America, a violent irruption of the ocean upon the land between the mountains Abyla and Calpe, that communication was broken, and the Mediterranean sea was formed. Among the people of Ceylon there is a tradition that a similar irruption of the sea separated their island from the peninsula of India. The same thing is believed by those of Malabar with respect to the isles of Maldivia, and with the Malayans with respect to Sumatra. It is certain, says the count de Buffon, that in Ceylon the earth has lost thirty or forty leagues, which the sea has taken from it; on the contrary, Tongres, a place of the Low Countries, has gained 30 leagues of land from the sea. The northern part of Egypt owes its existence to inundations of the Nile. The earth which this river has brought from the inland countries of Africa, and deposited in its inundations, has formed a soil of more than 25 cubits in depth. In like manner, adds the above author, the province of the Yellow River in China, and that of Louisiana, have only been formed of the mud of rivers. Pliny, Seneca, Diodorus, and Strabo, report innumerable examples of similar revolutions, which we omit, that our dissertation may not become too prolix; as also many modern revolutions, which are related in the theory of the earth of the count de Buffon and other authors. In South America, all those who have observed with philosophic eyes the peninsula of Yucatan, do not doubt that that country has once been the bed of the sea; and, on the contrary, in the channel of Bahama many indications show the island of Cuba to have been once united to the continent of Florida. In the strait which separates America from Asia many islands are found, which probably were the mountains belonging to that tract of land which we suppose to have been swallowed up by earthquakes; which is made more probable by the multitude of volcanoes which we know of in the peninsula of Kamtschatka. It is imagined, however, that the sinking of that land, and the separation of the two continents, has been occasioned by those great and extraordinary earthquakes mentioned in the histories of the Americans, which formed an era almost as memorable as that of the deluge. The histories of the Toltecs fix such earthquakes in the year 1 Teocpatl; but as we know not to what century that belonged, we can form no conjecture of the time that great calamity happened. If a great earthquake should overwhelm the isthmus of Suez, and there should be at the same time as great a scarcity of historians as there were in the first ages after the deluge, it would be doubted, in 300 or 400 years after, whether Asia had ever been united by that part to Africa; and many would firmly deny it.

96 Whether that great event, the separation of the separated continents, took place before or after the population of America, is as impossible as it is of little moment for us to know; but we are indebted to the above-mentioned navigators for settling the long dispute about the point from which it was effected. Their observations prove, that in one place the distance between continent and continent is only 30 miles, not (as the author of the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains would have it) 800 leagues. This narrow strait has also in the Estuaries of the middle two islands, which would greatly facilitate the migration of the Asiatics into the new world, supposed to have been between them.

America. fing that it took place in canoes after the convulsion which rent the two continents afunder. Besides, it may be added, that these straits are, even in the summer, often filled with ice; in winter, often frozen. In either case mankind might find an easy passage; in the last, the way was extremely ready for quadrupeds to cross and flock the continent of America. But where, from the vast expanse of the north-eastern world, to fix on the first tribes who contributed to people the new continent, now inhabited almost from end to end, is a matter that baffles human reason. The learned may make bold and ingenious conjectures, but plain good sense cannot always accede to them.

As mankind increased in numbers, they naturally protruded one another forward. Wars might be another cause of migrations. There appears no reason why the Asiatic north might not be an officina virorum, as well as the European. The oversteeming country, to the east of the Riphæan mountains, must find it necessary to discharge its inhabitants: the first great wave of people was forced forward by the next to it, more tumid and more powerful than itself; successive and new impulses continually arriving, short rest was given to that which spread over a more eastern tract; disturbed again and again, it covered fresh regions; at length, reaching the farthest limits of the old world, found a new one, with ample space to occupy unmolesed for ages; till Columbus cursed them by a discovery, which brought again new sins and new deaths to both worlds.

"The inhabitants of the new world (Mr Pennant observes) do not consist of the offspring of a single nation; different peoples, at several periods, arrived there; and it is impossible to say, that any one is now to be found on the original spot of its colonization. It is impossible, with the lights which we have so recently received, to admit that America could receive its inhabitants (at least the bulk of them) from any other place than eastern Asia. A few proofs may be added, taken from customs or dresses common to the inhabitants of both worlds; some have been long extinct in the old, others remain in both in full force.

"The custom of scalping was a barbarism in use with the Scythians, who carried about them at all times this savage mark of triumph: they cut a circle round the neck, and stripped off the skin, as they would that of an ox. A little image found among the Calmucks, of a Tartarian deity, mounted on a horse, and fitting on a human skin, with scalps pendent from the breast, fully illustrates the custom of their Scythian progenitors, as described by the Greek historian. This usage, as the Europeans know by horrid experience, is continued to this day in America. The ferocity of the Scythians to their prisoners extended to the remotest part of Asia. The Kamtschatkans, even at the time of their discovery by the Russians, put their prisoners to death by the most lingering and excruciating inventions; a practice in full force to this very day among the aboriginal Americans. A race of the Scythians were styled Anthropophagi, from their feeding on human flesh. The people of Nootka Sound still make a repast on their fellow-creatures: but what is more wonderful, the savage allies of the British army have been known to throw the mangled limbs of the French

prisoners into the horrible caldron, and devour them with the same relish as those of a quadruped.

"The Scythians were said, for a certain time, annually to transform themselves into wolves, and again to resume the human shape. The new-discovered Americans about Nootka Sound at this time disguise themselves in dresses made of the skins of wolves and other wild beasts, and wear even the heads fitted to their own. These habits they use in the chase, to circumvent the animals of the field. But would not ignorance or superstition ascribe to a supernatural metamorphosis these temporary expedients to deceive the brute creation?

"In their marches, the Kamtschatkans never went abreast, but followed one another in the same track. The same custom is exactly observed by the Americans. 102

"The Tungusi, the most numerous nation resident in Siberia, prick their faces with small punctures, with a needle, in various shapes; then rub into them charcoal, so that the marks become indelible. This custom is still observed in several parts of America. The Indians on the back of Hudson's bay, to this day, perform the operation exactly in the same manner, and puncture the skin into various figures; as the natives of New Zealand do at present, and as the ancient Britons did with the herb gladium, or woad; and the Virginians, on the first discovery of that country by the English.

"The Tungusi use canoes made of birch bark, distended over ribs of wood, and nicely sewed together. The Canadians, and many other American nations, use no other sort of boats. The paddles of the Tungusi are broad at each end; those of the people near Cook's river, and of Oonalascha, are of the same form.

"In burying of the dead, many of the American nations place the corpse at full length, after preparing it according to their customs; others place it in a sitting posture, and lay by it the most valuable clothing, wampum, and other matters. The Tartars did the same; and both people agree in covering the whole with earth, so as to form a tumulus, barrow, or car-nedd.

"Some of the American nations hang their dead in trees. Certain of the Tungusi observe a similar custom.

"We can draw some analogy from dress: convenience in that article must have been consulted on both continents, and originally the materials must have been the same, the skins of birds and beasts. It is singular, that the conic bonnet of the Chinese should be found among the people of Nootka. I cannot give into the notion, that the Chinese contributed to the population of the new world; but we can readily admit, that a shipwreck might furnish those Americans with a pattern for that part of the dress.

"In respect to the features and form of the human body, almost every tribe found along the western coast has some similitude to the Tartar nations, and still retain the little eyes, small noses, high cheeks, and broad faces. They vary in size, from the lusty Calmucks to the little Nogaians. The internal Americans, such as the Five Indian nations, who are tall of body, 103

America body, robust of make, and of oblong faces, are derived from a variety among the Tartars themselves. The fine race of Tschutski seem to be the stock from which those Americans are derived. The Tschutski, again, from that fine race of Tartars the Kabardiniski, or inhabitants of Kabarda.

"But about Prince William's found begins a race chiefly distinguished by their dress, their canoes, and their instruments of the chase, from the tribes to the south of them. Here commences the Esquimaux people, or the race known by that name in the high latitudes of the eastern side of the continent. They may be divided into two varieties. At this place they are of the largest size. As they advance northward, they decrease in height, till they dwindle into the dwarfish tribes which occupy some of the coasts of the Icy sea, and the maritime parts of Hudson's bay, of Greenland, and Terra de Labrador. The famous Japanese map, places some islands seemingly within the straits of Behring, on which is bestowed the title of Ta Sue, or the Kingdom of the Dwarfs. Does not this in some manner authenticate the chart, and give us reason to suppose that America was not unknown to the Japanese; and that they had (as is mentioned by Kämpfer and Charlevoix) made voyages of discovery, and according to the last, actually wintered on the continent? That they might have met with the Esquimaux is very probable: whom, in comparison of themselves, they might justly distinguish by the name of dwarfs. The reason of their low stature is very obvious: these dwell in a most severe climate, amidst penury of food; the former in one much more favourable, abundant in provisions; circumstances that tend to prevent the degeneracy of the human frame. At the island of Oona-lascha, a dialect of the Esquimaux is in use, which was continued along the whole coast from thence northward."

104
The brute
creation
migrated
by the same
route.
The continent which stocked America with the human race poured in the brute creation through the same passage. Very few quadrupeds continued in the peninsula of Kamtschatka; Mr Pennant enumerates only 25 which are inhabitants of land: all the rest perished in their migration, and fixed their residence in the new world. Seventeen of the Kamtschatkan quadrupeds are found in America: others are common only to Siberia or Tartary, having, for unknown causes, entirely evacuated Kamtschatka, and divided themselves between America and the parts of Asia above cited. Multitudes again have deserted the old world even to an individual, and fixed their seats at distances most remote from the spot from which they took their departure; from Mount Ararat, the resting-place of the ark, in a central part of the old world, and excellently adapted for the dispersion of the animal creation to all its parts. We need not be startled (says Mr Pennant) at the vast journeys many of the quadrupeds took to arrive at their present seats. Might not numbers of species have found a convenient abode in the vast Alps of Asia, instead of wandering to the Cordilleras of Chili? or might not others have been contented with the boundless plains of Tartary, instead of travelling thousands of miles to the extensive flats of Pampas?—To endeavour to elucidate common difficulties is certainly a trouble worthy of the philo-

sopher and of the divine; not to attempt it would be America, a criminal indolence, a neglect to

Vindicate the ways of God to man.

But there are multitudes of points beyond the human ability to explain, and yet are truths undeniable: the facts are indisputable, notwithstanding the causes are concealed. In such cases, faith must be called in to our relief. It would certainly be the height of folly to deny to that Being who broke open the fountains of the great deep to effect the deluge—and afterwards, to compel the dispersion of mankind to people the globe, directed the confusion of languages—powers inferior in their nature to these. After these wondrous proofs of Omnipotency, it will be absurd to deny the possibility of infusing instinct into the brute creation. Deus est anima brutorum; "God himself is the soul of brutes." His pleasure must have determined their will, and directed several species, and even whole genera, by impulse irresistible, to move by slow progression to their destined regions. But for that, the lama and the paco might still have inhabited the heights of Armenia and some more neighbouring Alps, instead of labouring to gain the distant Peruvian Andes; the whole genus of armadillos, slow of foot, would never have quitted the torrid zone of the old world for that of the new; and the whole tribe of monkeys would have gamboled together in the forests of India, instead of dividing their residence between the shades of Indian and the deep forests of the Brails. Lions and tigers might have infested the hot parts of the new world, as the first do the deserts of Africa, and the last the provinces of Asia; or the pantherine animals of South America might have remained additional scourges with the savage beasts of those ancient continents. The old world would have been overstocked with animals; the new remained an unanimated waste! or both have contained an equal portion of every beast of the earth. Let it not be objected, that animals bred in a southern climate, after the descent of their parents from the ark, would be unable to bear the frost and snow of the rigorous north, before they reached South America, the place of their final destination. It must be considered, that the migration must have been the work of ages; that in the course of their progress each generation grew hardened to the climate it had reached; and that after their arrival in America, they would again be gradually accustomed to warmer and warmer climates, in their removal from north to south, as they had been in the reverse, or from south to north. Part of the tigers still inhabit the eternal snows of Ararat; and multitudes of the very same species live, but with exalted rage, beneath the line, in the burning soil of Borneo or Sumatra; but neither lions nor tigers ever migrated into the new world. A few of the first are found in India and Persia, but they are found in numbers only in Africa. The tiger extends as far north as Western Tartary, in lat. 40. 50. but never has reached Africa."

In fine, the conjectures of the learned respecting the vicinity of the old and new worlds, are now, by the discoveries of our great navigators, lost in conviction; and in the place of imaginary hypotheses, the real place of migration is incontrovertibly pointed out. Some

America. Some (from a passage in Plato) have extended over the Atlantic, from the straits of Gibraltar to the coast of North and South America, an island equal in size to the continents of Asia and Africa; over which had passed, as over a bridge, from the latter, men and animals, woolly-headed negroes, and lions and tigers, none of which ever existed in the new world. A mighty sea arose, and in one day and night engulfed this stupendous tract, and with it every being which had not completed its migration into America. The whole negro race, and almost every quadruped, now inhabitants of Africa, perished in this critical day. Five only are to be found at present in America; and of these only one, the bear, in South America: Not a single custom, common to the natives of Africa and America, evince a common origin. Of the quadrupeds, the bear, stag, wolf, fox, and weasel, are the only animals which we can pronounce with certainty to be found on each continent. The stag, fox, and weasel, have made also no farther progress in Africa than the north; but on the same continent the wolf is spread over every part, yet is unknown in South America, as are the fox and weasel. In Africa and South America the bear is very local, being met with only in the north of the first, and on the Andes in the last. Some cause unknown arrested its progress in Africa, and impelled the migration of a few into the Chilian Alps, and induced them to leave unoccupied the vast tract from North America to the lofty Cordilleras.

Allusions have often been made to some remains, on the continent of America, of a more polished and cultivated people, when compared with the tribes which possessed it on its first discovery by Europeans. Mr Barton, in his Observations on some parts of Natural History, Part I. has collected the scattered hints of Kalm, Carver, and some others, and has added a plan of a regular work, which has been discovered on the banks of the Muskingum, near its junction with the Ohio. These remains are principally stone walls, large mounds of earth, and a combination of these mounds with the walls, suspected to have been fortifications. In some places the ditches and the fortifications are said to have been plainly seen: in others, furrows, as if the land had been ploughed.

The mounds of earth are of two kinds: they are artificial tumuli, designed as repositories for the dead; or they are of a greater size, for the purpose of defending the adjacent country; and with this view they are artificially constructed, or advantage is taken of the natural eminences, to raise them into a fortification.

The remains near the banks of the Muskingum, are situated about one mile above the junction of that river with the Ohio, and 160 miles below Fort Pitt. They consist of a number of walls and other elevations, of ditches, &c. altogether occupying a space of ground about 300 perches in length, and from about 150 to 25 or 20 in breadth. The town, as it has been called, is a large level, encompassed by walls, nearly in the form of a square, the sides of which are from 96 to 86 perches in length. These walls are, in general, about 10 feet in height above the level on which they stand, and about 20 feet in diameter at the base, but at the top they are much narrower; they are at present overgrown with vegetables of different kinds, and,

VOL. II. Part I.

among others, with trees of several feet diameter. The chasms, or openings in the walls, were probably intended for gateways: they are three in number at each side, besides the smaller openings in the angles. Within the walls there are three elevations, each about six feet in height, with regular ascents to them: these elevations considerably resemble some of the eminences already mentioned, which have been discovered near the river Mississippi. This author's opinion is, That the Toltecas, or some other Mexican nation, were the people to whom the mounts and fortifications, which he has described, owe their existence; and that those people were probably the descendants of the Danes. The former part of this conjecture is thought probable, from the similarity of the Mexican mounts and fortifications described by the Abbé Clavigero, and other authors, to those described by our author; and from the tradition of the Mexicans, that they came from the north-west; for, if we can rely on the testimony of late travellers, fortifications similar to those mentioned by Mr Barton, have been discovered as far to the north as Lake Pepin; and we find them, as we approach to the south, even as low as the coasts of Florida. The second part of our author's conjecture appears not so well supported.

It is believed by many, that the ancients had some imperfect notions of a new world; and several ancient authors are quoted in confirmation of this. In a book ascribed to the philosopher Aristotle, we are told that the Carthaginians discovered an island far beyond the pillars of Hercules, large, fertile, and finely watered with navigable rivers, but uninhabited. This island was distant a few days sailing from the continent; its beauty induced the discoverers to settle there; but the policy of Carthage dislodged the colony, and laid strict prohibition on all the subjects of the state not to attempt any future establishment. This account is also confirmed by an historian of no mean credit, who relates, that the Tyrians would have settled a colony on the new discovered island, but were opposed by the Carthaginians for state reasons. The following passage has also been quoted from Seneca's Medea, in confirmation of this notion.

—Venit annis
Sæcula feris, quibus oceanus
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens
Patet tellus, Typhique novos
Delegat orbes; nec sibi terris
Ultima Thule.