THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDOLENCE. 335 



But at Rio Janeiro the rainy season falls in summer, 

 from November to March, and winter is the dry- 

 season. Of an annual rainfall of forty-eight and a 

 half inches, only five and a half inches fall in the 

 winter months, June, July, and August, and less than 

 an inch and a half in July. No doubt the amount of 

 rain is greater at a mountain station such as Petropolis, 

 while the proportion falling in the different seasons 

 must be about the same. 



At Petropolis, as well as elsewhere in South 

 America, I was struck by the fact that the children 

 of European parents born in the country speedily 

 acquire the indolent habits of the native population of 

 Spanish or Portuguese origin. The direct influence 

 of climate is doubtless one cause of the change of dis- 

 position, but 1 suspect that the chief share is due to 

 the great difference in the conditions of life which are 

 the indirect results of climate. Where mere existence 

 is so enjoyable, where physical wants are so few and 

 so easily supplied, the chief stimulus to exertion is 

 wanting, and the natural distaste for labour prevails 

 over the hope of gain. A boy will prefer to pick up 

 a few pence by collecting flowers, or roots, or butter- 

 flies in the forest near his home, to earning ten times 

 as much by walking to a distance, especially if ex- 

 pected to carry a light weight. On my first visit to 

 Itamariti I took with me a German boy, whom I left 

 in charge of the superfluous horse that I had been 

 advised to take with me. Finding the occupation a 

 bore, and probably fearing that he would have to 

 carry back the portfolio and vasculum that I had 

 taken for plant-collecting, he fastened the bridle to a 



