the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil
or the advantages of a market had induced to build towns.
Agriculture therefore was a religious injunction, because
of the perils of the state from nomadism. And in these
late and civil countries of England and America these
propensities still fight out the old battle, in the nation
and in the individual. The nomads of Africa were constrained
to wander, by the attacks of the gad-fly, which drives the
cattle mad, and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the
rainy season and to drive off the cattle to the higher sandy
regions. The nomads of Asia follow the pasturage from month
to month. In America and Europe the nomadism is of trade and
curiosity; a progress, certainly, from the gad-fly of
Astaboras to the Anglo and Italo-mania of Boston Bay. Sacred
cities, to which a periodical religious pilgrimage was
enjoined, or stringent laws and customs, tending to invigorate
the national bond, were the check on the old rovers; and the
cumulative values of long residence are the restraints on the
itineracy of the present day. The antagonism of the two
tendencies is not less active in individuals, as the love of
adventure or the love of repose happens to predominate. A man
of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty of rapid
domestication, lives in his wagon and roams through all
latitudes as easily as a Calmuc. At sea, or in the forest, or
in the snow, he sleeps as warm, dines with as good appetite,
and associates as happily as beside his own chimneys. Or
perhaps his facility is deeper seated, in the increased range
of his faculties of observation, which yield him points of
interest wherever fresh objects meet his eyes. The pastoral
nations were needy and hungry to desperation; and this