of sand, to whom a draught of fresh water would be a blessing, and the
simplest meal a luxury.

"Perhaps, however, you will say they are so engrossed with the animal
wants of hunger and thirst, that they are incapable of attending to any
thing else. Be it so. But in the interior they are placed in parallel
circumstances with the natives of Europe: they are engaged in struggles
for territory and dominion--for their altars and their homes; and this
state of things, which has made some of them brave and warlike, has made
none poets or painters, historians or philosophers. There, poetry has not
wanted themes of great achievement and noble daring; but heroes have
wanted poets. Nor can we justly ascribe the difference to the enervating
influence of climate, for the temperature of the most southern parts of
Africa differs little from that of Greece. And the tropical nations, too,
of your own continent, the Peruvians, were more improved than those who
inhabited the temperate regions. Besides, though the climate had instilled
softness and feebleness of character, it might also have permitted the
cultivation of the arts, as has been the case with us in Asia. On the
whole, without our being able to pronounce with certainty on the subject,
it does seem probable that some organic difference exists in the various
races of mankind, to which their diversities of moral and intellectual
character may in part be referred."--By this time the Morea and the
Grecian Archipelago were directly under our telescope.

"Does not Greece," said I, "furnish the clearest proof of the influence
of moral causes on the character of nations? Compare what that country
formerly was, with what it now is. Once superior to all the rest of the
habitable globe, (of which it did not constitute the thousandth part,)
in letters, arts, and arms, and all that distinguishes men from brutes;
not merely in their own estimation, (for all nations are disposed to rate