236 AMERICA. 



herbs. But the power of these remedies is always attributed to the 

 magical ceremonies with which they are administered. 



It should be observed by the reader, that the particulars which 

 have just been mentioned concerning the manners of the Americans, 

 chiefly relate to the inhabitants of North America. The manners 

 and general characteristics of great part of the original. inhabitants of 

 South America were very different. On the first appearance of the 

 inhabitants of the New World, their discoverers found them to be in 

 many particulars very unlike the generality of the people of the 

 ancient hemisphere. They were different in their features and com- 

 plexions ; they were not only averse to toil, but seemed incapable of 

 it; and when roused by force from their native indolence, and com- 

 pelled to work, they sunk under tasks which the inhabitants of the 

 other continent would have performed with ease. This feebleness 

 of constitution seemed almost universal among the inhabitants of 

 South America. The Spaniards were also struck with the smallness 

 of their appetite for food. The constitutional temperance of the natives 

 far exceeded, in their opinion, the abstinence of the most mortified 

 hermits; while, on the other hand, the appetite of the Spaniards ap- 

 peared to the Americans insatiably voracious ; and they affirmed that 

 one Spaniard devoured more food in a day than was sufficient for ten 

 Americans. But though the demands of the native Americans for 

 food were very sparing, so limited was their agriculture, that they 

 hardly raised what was sufficient for their own consumption. Many 

 of the inhabitants of South America confined their industry to rearing 

 a few plants, which, in a rich and warm climate, were easily trained 

 to maturity ; but if a few Spaniards settled in any district, such a small 

 addition of supernumerary mouths soon exhausted their scanty stores, 

 and brought on a famine. The inhabitants of South America, com- 

 pared with those of North America, are generally more feeble in 

 their frame, less vigorous in the efforts of their minds, of a gentle but 

 dastardly spirit, more enslaved by pleasure, and sunk in indolence. 



A GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF AMERICA. 



This great western continent, frequently denominated the New 

 World, extends from the 80th degree north, to the 56th degree 

 south latitude; and, from the 35th to the 168th degree of west lon- 

 gitude from London. Its whole length is 9591 miles, and its great- 

 est breadth 4570. Across the Isthmus of Darien, it is only 34 miles 

 broad, making a mean breadth of about 1500 miles. It lies in both 

 hemispheres, has two summers, and a double winter, and enjoys all 

 the variety of climates which the earth affords. It is washed by the 

 two great oceans. To the eastward it has the Atlantic, which- di- 

 vides it from Europe and Africa ; and to the west the Pacific, or Great 

 South Sea, by which it is separated from Asia. By these seas it may, 

 and does, carry on a direct commerce with the other three parts of 

 the world. It is composed of two great continents, one on the north, 

 the other on the south, which are joined by the kingdom of Mexico, 

 which forms a kind of isthmus 1500 miles long, and in one part, at 

 Darien, so extremely narrow, as to make the communication between 

 the two oceans by no means difficult. In the great gulf which is 

 formed between the isthmus and the northern and southern continents 

 lie a multitude of islands, many of them large, most of them fertile, 



