60 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



Kra-negro remains muscular in his laborious exertions, with a 

 purely vegetable diet, chiefly rice, which is also the case with 

 the inhabitants of Yarriba. 1 The English are less able to bear 

 the moist heat of tropical climates than the Portuguese, 

 Spaniards, and even the French, because they cannot easily 

 give up their animal diet and spirituous liquors. In Brazil 

 alone the Portuguese seem to form an exception; they live 

 there on meat, fish, and spirituous liquors, apparently without 

 injury. The Esquimaux requires for his meals considerable 

 quantities of animal food, fat, blubber, etc. ; but a large con- 

 sumption of indigestible aliment gives so much work to the 

 digestive organs as to interfere with the development of the 

 intellectual faculties, though it may not be so injurious as the 

 consumption of large quantities of non-nutritious aliments. 



However true it may be that the desire for a quantity of 

 substantial food prevails more in cold and temperate climates, 

 there are still exceptions to this rule. The Negroes of the 

 Gold Coast are great gluttons, and even Europeans who visit 

 this region preserve their good appetite. 2 



If the comparison be confined to the English with the Irish, 

 the European with the rice consuming Hindoo or Japanese, or 

 even with the Chinese who eat flesh sparingly, it certainly 

 would appear that an animal diet is favourable to the develop- 

 ment of the character and the intellect. The case, however, is 

 altered if a more comprehensive view be taken. The South- 

 African nations cannot do for any length of time without 

 animal food. 3 The Hottentots and Kaffirs, who, like the peoples 

 of cold climates, consume fat and tallow in large quantities, 4 

 differ a good deal in character and activity. On the arrival of 

 the Dutch at the Cape, in the seventeenth century, they found 

 the Hottentots peaceable, intellectually inert, but good-natured, 

 and yet they were then like the warlike Kaffirs of the present 

 day, a pastoral people, living chiefly on the milk of their cattle. 



1 Koler, "Einige Notizen iiber Bonny/' p. 57, 1848; Lander, "E. zur Er- 

 forsch. des Niger/' i, p. 81, 1833. 



2 " Allg. Historie der Eeisen," iv, p. 127. 



3 Liechtenstein, " E. im Siidl. Africa," i, p. 110, 1811. 



4 Thunberg, "E. durcli e. Theil v. Europa, Afr. u. Asien," i, p. 175, 1792; 

 Gardiner, " Narrative of a Journey to the Zulu Country," p. 175, 1836. 



