80 Absence of Deserts ifi llie United States, 



We will now briefly note the effect of deserts upon the human 

 figure, upon population, industry, the arts, morals, and liberty. 

 The human form in connection with deserts, is without its wonted 

 symmetry — thin, dry, and emaciated ; and the complexion dark 

 swarthy. Man seems formed there to drift with the sands, to 

 move his hght and elastic frame with all the quickness that un- 

 certainty might require, but possesses not the muscular power 

 necessary to effective labour. The Africans, Arabians, Tartars, 

 Bedouins, and others, are swarthy, dark, and devoid of all the 

 symmetry of which the race is susceptible, and strikingly illus- 

 trate our position. 



In such countries population is sparse, and the few who draw 



a scanty support from the stinted and uncertain vegetation, are 

 unfixed in their habits, and wanderers. They reaHze nothing, 

 improve not their condition, are actuated by the sudden impulses 

 of want, or the emergency occasioned by the irregularities of the 

 elements around them. 



When the seasons and . climate of the country in which man 

 lives are uncertain; when no human effort can control them, and 

 no art or foresight render labour available, he partakes of all the 

 irregularity of the seasons; becomes as wild as nature herself; 

 puts himself afloat with the elements, and is in his turn a devas- 

 tator. 



If industry exists not, and human labour be unavailable, none 

 of those improvements which change the condition of our race, 

 and give to us character and comfort, have any existence. 

 Without surplus production, there can be no commercial ex- 

 changes; a limit is thus placed to social improvement, and 

 a barrier erected against civilization. Man, under such a 

 state of things, cannot multiply his race, because his supply of 

 food is limited ; nor create wealth, because his labour is unpro- 

 ductive and without stimulus ; nor make valuable improvements 

 in the arts, comforts, and intercourse of society, because he has 

 neither the means nor the necessary numbers ; nor can he polish 

 and refine himself, because his state of society is essentially wild 

 and violent. 



Morality, is there, nothing beyond those simple virtues which 

 are connected with self-preservation ; that rude hospitality, the 

 necessity of which, dire suffering has felt ; and that reckless bra- 

 very which has been prompted by despair. High and honourable 



