IN THE HUMAN RACE. 19 



mies, they are benevolent and just to those of their own 

 family or tribe. In all their actions they seem to have 

 adopted this maxim : 



A generous friendship no cold medium knows ; 

 Burns with one love, with one resentment glows. 



In short, the characteristics of savage nations, in a 

 moral point of view, are every where much the same. A 

 wild, independent, and unsocial mode of living, produces 

 a peculiar assemblage of virtues and vices ; whence 

 patience and hospitality, indolence and rapacity, content 

 and sincerity, the warmest attachment to friends, and the 

 bitterest animosity against foes, are as distinguishable 

 among the American savages, as among any other bar- 

 barous and uncivilised hordes on earth. 



The SIXTH and last grand division of the human 

 race, and the most elevated in the scale of being, com- 

 prehends the Europeans, and those of European origin ; 

 among which latter may be classed the Georgians, Cir- 

 cassians, and Mingrelians, the natives of Asia Minor and 

 the northern parts of Africa, as well as of a part of 

 those countries that lie north-west of the Caspian Sea. 

 The inhabitants of regions so extensive and so widely 

 separated, must be expected to vary greatly from each 

 other ; but, in general, there is a striking uniformity in 

 the fairness of their complexions, the beauty and propor- 

 tion of their limbs, and the extent of their capacity. 

 Arts which are but partially practised or little known in 

 other countries, are among this class brought to the highest 

 perfection ; and it will scarcely be denied, except by the 

 visionary advocates for savage life, that in them alone the 

 highest endowments of the understanding, the best vir- 

 tues of the heart, and in short whatever can improve or 

 adorn human nature, are to be found in a super-eminent 

 degree. 



To some one of the divisions already enumerated, the 

 people of every country may be referred ; and in propor- 

 tion as nations have been less visited by strangers, or have 



