158 SUBSEQUENT LANGUOR. 



those who have been long resident in hot countries, 

 and to have acquired all their listlessness and indif- 

 ference, want of energy, and want of curiosity. 

 Neither was this state of mind transient ; I could 

 not overcome it for two or three months after we 

 left Java, and it was not till I had enjoyed the fresh 

 sea-breezes of Torres Strait for a month or two, 

 that I again felt myself fit for active exertion, or 

 my former love of, and delight in, explorations and 

 excursions revived. I now, for the first time, knew 

 how to account for and excuse what at first seemed 

 to me the blameable inertness, indolence, and indif- 

 ference to anything beyond the comfort of the passing 

 hour, the want of energy and action so almost univer- 

 sally characteristic of the resident in hot climates. 

 The European, at his first arrival, brings with 

 him the feelings and powers belonging to a tempe- 

 rate zone, which are acted on by the powerful 

 excitement of new and delightful scenes, and he 

 wonders at and contemns the apathy of the native 

 or the resident European. Either by the sudden 

 attack of sickness or the gradual action of the cli- 

 mate, however, his own energy is undermined, and 

 he eventually falls into the same listlessness and 

 love of repose. 



Another apparent consequence of the fever, but 

 a much more temporary one, was an attack of 

 " prickly heat," as it is called. This is a kind* of 

 rash, or eruption, which breaks out on various parts 

 of the body, especially where the clothes are tight 



