Viewing page 40 of 130

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

96

globe. The ancients who frequented the Asiatic zone without fear, esteemed the African an uninhabitable zone of fire.  And modern travellers, who have explored the interior of that continent with the greatest intelligence and care, inform us that, although along the margins of the rivers Gambia and Senegal, and for some distance on each side, there are shady forests and a fertile soil, yet almost the whole region embraced between the tropics is a tract of sand that often literally burns.  This state, not of the atmosphere only, but especially of the earth, in the dust of which young savages, utterly neglectful of decency of manners, often roll themselves, will have its effect in increasing the close nap of the wool, for the same reason that a hair held near a flame will coil itself up, or the leaves of vegetables be rolled together under the direct rays of an intense sun, when the earth is at the same time parched with drought.

A part of the population of Borneo, and the whole of that of New Holland, Mallicollo, and other islands, have likewise a very crisped and curled substance instead of straight and long hair, but in Africa alone do we find that extremely short and close nap which distinguishes the inhabitants of the western tropical region of that continent. The hair as well as

97

the whole constitution, suffers, in that region the effects of an intense fire.

The rude habits of an uncultivated people contribute to heighten the injurious effects of the climate.  Being savages, they possess few arts to protect them from its intensity.  Nor are they led by any refinement in their tastes of living, or their ideas of personal elegance to invent such arts, or to apply them, if they were acquainted with them, to improve their appearance.  The African climate preserving the life of children without requiring those attentions in the parent which are necessary in colder regions, and under a more variable atmosphere, they are, perhaps, among the most negligent people in the world of their offspring.*  The character of most nations

[[footnote]]* If children, by their own instincts and natural powers, or by the favourable temperature and spontaneous productions of the climate, could as soon, and as easily provide for their safety and subsistence as some of the inferior animals, and were as little dependent on the care of the parent, parental attentions and filial duties would both equally cease, and with them all the delicate ties of family affection.  Civilized society could, in that case, hardly ever have had an existence.  The African savages approach nearer to this state than any other people on the globe.  This is, perhaps, the principal reason why men have always existed as savages in the greater part of the African continent. Another reason, however, of this unfortunate [[/footnote]]

M

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 14:14:40 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 16:24:19 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 17:47:31