I9I3.] HIGHEST NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 479 



density of population and the stage of culture depend to a large 

 extent upon the amount and kind of fevers. Yet fevers are far 

 from being the whole story. Few who have ever been in the 

 torrid zone will deny that under prolonged and unvarying conditions 

 of heat and dampness both physical and mental energy decline. 

 One is tempted to sit down idly and rest and enjoy the warm air. 

 When it is time for a new piece of work one tends to hesitate 

 and to be uncertain as to just how to begin. Of course there are 

 exceptions, and of course a long inheritance of activity in cooler 

 regions will for years largely overcome these tendencies. Neverthe- 

 less of the scores of northerners, both American and Europeans, 

 whom I have questioned in the torrid zone there was scarcely one 

 who did not say that he worked less than at home. At first a con- 

 siderable number said that they had as much energy as at home, 

 but then they added that it was not necessary to work so hard, and 

 moreover that they did not feel like it. Much more striking was 

 the absolute unanimity with which they said that when they experi- 

 enced a dhange of climate, especially if they went from lowlands 

 to highlands, or still more when they returned to the north, they at 

 once felt an access of energy which lasted some time after their 

 return. To a New Englander accustomed to look upon our southern 

 states as having a warm, debilitating climate, it is interesting to 

 hear people in Guatemala speak of being stimulated as soon as they 

 feel the cool winter air of New Orleans. The natives of the torrid 

 zone are of course so accustomed to the heat that they enjoy it and 

 suffer from even a slight degree of cold, but the very fact of being 

 wonted to the heat seems to carry with it the necessity of working 

 and thinking slowly. The universality with which this is recog- 

 nized in Central America is significant. Again and again, when one 

 asks about labor conditions in specific places, one is told, " Oh yes, 

 the people there are all right, but you know it's always hot down 

 there and they don't work much." All this, I know, is perfectly 

 familiar, but it deserves emphasis because the great ruins are prac- 

 tically all in the hot country where "they don't work much." 



In addition to debilitating fevers and an enervating uniformity of 

 warm, moist atmospheric conditions, tropical countries suffer from 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, LII, 211 M, PRINTED SEPT. l6, I913. 



