56 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



in as much as the Negroes were in former times much more 

 numerous in North Africa than now, and that intermixture 

 between Negroes and Tuaryks occurs frequentlyin the southern 

 districts of the latter. 



The influence of climate upon temperament and character has 

 been as much exaggerated as that upon the physical constitution. 

 According to Falconer, 1 a hot climate greatly increases sensi- 

 bility, and predisposes to sensual excesses, revenge, thought- 

 lessness, inconstancy, and cowardice; whilst a cold climate 

 produces the opposite qualities. He also endeavours to show 

 that climate has an influence upon laws, religion, and politics. 

 Travellers, Werne for instance, have observed in themselves 

 and other persons that the temporal residence in a tropical 

 climate produces a great irritability of temperament which 

 disappears again in Europe. Something similar is also found 

 here and there among immigrants who are already acclimatized. 

 " A morbid irritability is general in this country (Port Natal) ; 

 this is more the case in the bay, that is, around d' Urban, than 

 here (Pietermaritzburg), so that the more sober Maritzburgers 

 are astonished at nothing that happens down the country, un- 

 less something rational is effected." 2 These effects appear, 

 however, to be merely transitory and of a local nature. Gener- 

 ally we may assume that the continued influence of a hot 

 climate produces a relaxed state, diminishing bodily and mental 

 activity, or, as Poppig says, 3 that it leaves man physically and 

 morally more inert than a temperate climate. It is not always 

 the case that people living under a serene sky are more joyous 

 and more inclined to sports and dancing than those enveloped 

 by mists and clouds. In North and South America, as well as 

 in the South Sea, there are found under the same climatic, 

 conditions, unsocial and morose nations, as well as cheerful and 

 social peoples. While Egyptians and Hindoos are patient and 

 unimpassioned, the Esquimaux and Tschuktch are of an 

 irritable, cheerful, and elastic nature. The present Chileno 

 (says Poppig) does not possess that characteristic irritability 



1 " Remarks on the Influence of Climate/' 1781. 



2 Bleek, in Petermann's " Geogr. Mittheil." p. 369, 1856. 



3 R. in Chili, Peru, and the Amazon River, ii, p. 180, 1835, 



