TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 179 



racter which can hardly have arisen from any other cause than that of a compara- 

 tively rigorous climate, necessitating exertion. 



The vast continent of America, temperate, tropical, and equatorial, natiu'ally 



f)ossesses many of the essential properties requisite for the promotion of a high civi- 

 ization — deeply indented coasts, high mountain-chains, and the greatest rivers of 

 the world, with lakes equivalent to inland seas. It was for the most part covered 

 with deep forests, imconquerable by the feeble efibrts of savages, clear mountain 

 plateaux and prairies being the exceptions. Instead of the many cereals of the 

 Old World, it had but a single com. It had no domestic beast of draught, and 

 virtually but a single beast of burden, of about one-sixth part of the power of the 

 camel, and even this one confined to a mountain region, for which alone it was fit. 

 But the greatest defect of America consisted in the race of man — below the negi-o 

 of Africa in physical sti-ength, and below the Malay in intelligence. The same 

 race, with inconsiderable varieties, pervaded the whole continent from Terra del' 

 Fuego to the confines of the Esquimaux. The highest civilization reached bj' the 

 American race was that which existed on the high plateau of the Andes but even 

 that was far below the degree which had been attained by second- and third-rate 

 nations of Asia — the sufficient proof of which is, that the Mexicans and Peruvians 

 had not invented letters, nor discovered the art of making iron malleable, as had 

 all of these. In that portion of America extending fi'om the great chain of lakes 

 to the Gulf of Mexico, where about two centuries and a half ago savage hunters 

 alone wandered, there now exists, planted within that comparatively brief period> 

 an Anglo-Saxon popidatiou as numerous as that of the country which colonized it,- 

 and of the same rank of ci\ilization, — a fact which attests beyond all question the 

 natiu-al capacity of this region for developing the highest powers of man. Tliis" 

 great and prosperous people imitates the coimti-y from whence it sprang in all things, 

 virtues, vices, and follies. In obedience to tliis example it is at the present moment- 

 shedding its blood and wasting its wealth to no rational pm-pose. 



The huge mass of land which we call Africa, extending over seventy degi'ees of 

 latitude, although almost an islfind, has a coast less indented than any other of the 

 great quartei-s of the globe. It has no high chain of mountains comparable to those 

 of Eiu'ope, Asia, and America, and hence no gi-eat navigable rivers like theirs. It' 

 wants also their inland seas and great lakes. Much of its area consists of -wild 

 sandy deserts, and much of primeval and perennial tropical forest, more difficult. 

 of transit than the sandy desert itself. These natural obstacles are hindrances to 

 intercommimication, and therefore to social progress. The races of man which 

 inhabit Africa correspond with the disadvantages of its phj^sical geography. Taking 

 the capacity to invent -written letters, to construct durable architectural monuments, 

 and to form powerful states as tests of capacity for civilization, Afi-ica may be briefly 

 sketched. To the north of the chain of the Atlas and bordered by the Mediten-a- 

 uean, we have a naiTOw slip of land in climate and production far more European 

 than African. The aboriginal people of this region, the Numidians and Maiu'ita-' 

 nians, the ancestors of the present Kabyles and Berbers, were in phj'sical form and- 

 niental endo-wment more European, or perhaps Asiatic, than African. The couu-: 

 tiymen of Jugurtha had invented letters, built dui-able monimients, and acquired - 

 such military skill and power as to enable them to defeat Roman armies. Theiiv 

 ten-itorial limits, however, were too narrow, and their political skill too small, 

 to enable them to construct an empire, and for 2000 yeai's they have been subju- 

 gated by a succession of invaders. Egypt, like Barbary, has the advantage of a 

 temperate climate, and of the peculiar and perennial fertility confeiTed by the Nile, 

 T\-ithout which its narrow valley would, like the countrj^ on both sides of it, be a 

 mere desert of sand. The race which inhabited it was less European or African 

 than Asiatic, and in capacity bore a considerable resemblance to Chinese. In so 

 favoured a locality, and -wdth such a people, an early social advancement was 

 inevitable ; but the Egyptian civilization was not a vigorous or an enterprising one. 

 The EgAT)tians were a home-keeping people, who never left their o-wn country, and- 

 who, unable to defend it, have been subdued by a succession of invaders for now thirty- 

 ages. Had the Jews, a people far more highly endowed, been sufficiently nimie- 

 rous and powerful, which their poor and limited territory forbade, I am of opinion 

 that instead of the bondsmen they would have been the masters of the Eg^-jitians^ 

 After referring to the Nubian and Abyssinian races, he continued :— " 



12* 



