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86 STATE OF CULTIVATION. 
mestizoes, and placed in the centre of small en- 
closures, containing papaws, plantains, sugar-canes, 
and maize. In Europe, the wheat, barley, and other 
kinds of grain, cover vast spaces of ground, and, in 
general, wherever the inhabitants live upon corn, the 
cultivated lands are not separated from each other 
by the intervention of large wastes ; but in the torrid 
zone, where the fertility of the soil is proportionate to 
the heat and humidity of the air, and where man has 
appropriated plants that yield earlier and more abun- 
dant crops, an immense population finds ample sub- 
sistence on a narrow space. The scattered disposi- 
tion of the huts in the midst of the forest indicates 
to the traveller the fecundity of nature. 
- In so mild and uniform a climate, the only urgent 
want of man is that of food; and in the midst of 
abundance, his intellectual faculties receive less im- 
provement than in colder regions, where his necessities 
are numerous and diversified. While in Europe, we 
judge of the inhabitants of a country by the extent 
of laboured ground ; in the warmest parts of South 
America, populous provinces seem to the traveller 
almost deserted, because a very small extent of soil 
is sufficient for the maintenance of a family. The in- 
sulated state in which the natives thus live, prevents 
any rapid progress of civilisation, although it deve- 
lops the sentiments of independence and liberty. 
As the travellers penetrated into the forest, the 
barometer indicated the progressive elevation of the 
land. About three in the afternoon they halted on 
a small flat, where a few houses had been erected 
near a spring, the water of which they found deli- 
cious. Its temperature was 72°5°, while that of the 
air was 83°7°. From the top of a sandstone-hill 
Aa. 5 
