88 HISTORY OF 



paint the body and face of various colours, and 

 consider the hair upon any part of it, except the 

 head, as a deformity which they are careful to 

 eradicate. Their limbs are generally slighter 

 made than those of the Europeans ; and I am 

 assured they are far from being so strong. All 

 these savages seem to be cowardly ; they seldom 

 are known to face their enemies in the field, but 

 fall upon them at an advantage ; and the great- 

 ness of their fears serves to increase the rigours 

 of their cruelty. The wants which they often 

 sustain, make them surprisingly patient in adver- 

 sity ; distress, by being grown familiar, becomes 

 less terrible ; so that their patience is less the re- 

 sult of fortitude than of custom. They have all 

 a serious air, although they seldom think ; and, 

 however cruel to their enemies, are kind and just 

 to each other. In short, the customs of savage 

 nations in every country are almost the same : a 

 wild, independent, and precarious life, produces 

 a peculiar train of virtues and vices ; and patience 

 and hospitality, indolence and rapacity, content 

 and sincerity, are found not less among the na- 

 tives of America, than all the barbarous nations 

 of the globe. 



The sixth and last variety of the human spe- 

 cies, is that of the Europeans, and the nations 

 bordering on them. In this class we may reckon 

 the Georgians, Circassians, and Mingrelians, the 

 inhabitants of Asia Minor, and the northern 

 parts of Africa, together with a part of those 

 countries which lie north-west of the Caspian 

 Sea. The inhabitants of these countries differ u 



