ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE. 673 



warm and light their huts with seal oil ; the basis of their food 

 is seal meat, fish and shell-fish only serving to give variety to it ; 

 they wear a full dress of seal-skin sewed with seal tendons, with 

 needles of seal bone ; their boots are of seal leather, and their 

 baby-clothes are also made of seal-skin ; and that substance con- 

 stitutes the sheathing to their boats. They are able to travel on 

 land, or snow and ice, in sledges drawn by their dogs. With the 

 conditions of existence thus fairly well assured to them, they 

 have proved themselves accessible to a certain degree of civiliza- 

 tion, and have been taught to read and write, and to submit 

 themselves to religious restraints. Yet they are liable to suffer- 

 ings in seasons of extreme severity which they might escape if, 

 instead of the wild seal, they had some domestic animal on which 

 they could depend for the supply of their food and economical 

 wants. 



The reindeer is to the Laplander all that the seal is to the 

 Eskimo, and more. It /gives him its skin for clothing, its flesh 

 for food, its horns and bones for tool-making. It furthermore 

 gives milk, and is a pack and draught animal. To these it adds the 

 capital advantage over the seal of being a real domestic animal, 

 so that the Laplander is rarely deprived of necessaries. The dog 

 is also an auxiliary. The Laplander has, therefore, two domestic 

 animals. He has made a corresponding advance in civilization 

 beyond what has been accomplished by the Eskimo. 



The Spanish conquerors found two countries in America which 

 had a civilization of ancient date Peru, where there were two 

 domestic animals, the dog and the llama ; and Mexico, which, with 

 no domestic animal but the dog, had an advanced and very pro- 

 ductive agriculture. Everywhere else the Spaniards found sav- 

 ages, of whom the Caribs were the most famous. These are rep- 

 resented now by the Galibis and other tribes in Guiana, who 

 exist in a primitive condition, without domestic animals. On his 

 second voyage to America, in 1493, Columbus brought over some 

 European domestic animals, which became the property of the 

 Indians who had intercourse with the whites. The half-breeds 

 of these Indians, the Gauchos and the Araucanians, became in 

 less than two centuries pastoral and agricultural peoples, while 

 other tribes, retiring from the whites, fell into a state of decline. 



America, poor in domestic animals and having few cultivated 

 plants at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards, from being 

 able to support only a primitive and sparse population, has by the 

 aid of these elements of civilization become populous and wealthy. 

 The same that has been accomplished in America in three cent- 

 uries has been done in Australia in fifty years. 



From this review of primitive life we draw the conclusions 

 that, wherever he may be found, man is condemned perpetually 

 vol. xxxviii. 46 



