Ch. vi. Inhabitants of the North of Eltrope. 117 



more populous countries, particularly those 

 abounding in great towns and manufactures, an 

 insufficient supply of food can seldom continue 

 long without producing epidemics either in the 

 shape of great and ravaging plagues, or of less 

 violent, though more constant, sicknesses. In 

 poor, cold and thinly-peopled countries, on the 

 contrary, from the antiseptic quality of the air, 

 the misery arising from insufficient or bad food 

 may continue for a considerable time without pro- 

 ducing these effects; and consequently this pow- 

 erful stimulus to emigration continues to operate 

 for a much longer period.* 



I would by no means, however, be understood 

 to say, that the northern nations never undertook 

 any expeditions, unless prompted by straitened 

 food or circumstances at home. Mallet relates, 

 what was probably true, that it was their common 

 custom to hold an assembly every spring, for the 

 purpose of considering in what quarter they should 

 make war;f and among a people who nourished 

 so strong a passion for war, and who considered 

 the right of the strongest as a right divine, occa- 

 sions for it would never be wanting. Besides 



* Epidemics return more or less frequently, according to their 

 various soils, situations, air, &c. Hence some return yearly, as in 

 Egypt and Constantinople ; others once in four or five years, as 

 about Tripoli and Aleppo ; others, scarce once in ten, twelve or 

 thirteen years, as in England ; others not in less than twenty 

 years, as in Norway and the Northern Islands. Short, History of 

 Air, Seasons, &c. vol. ii. p. 344. 



t Hist. Dan. c. ix. p. 209. 



