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gions equally remote, the manners and traditions 

 of Europe are more habitually preserved in the 

 temperate zone, and on the ridges of the equa- 

 torial mountains, than in the plains of the tor- 

 rid zone. Similarity of situation contributes in 

 a certain degree to maintain more intimate con- 

 nections between the colonists and the metropo- 

 lis. This influence of physical causes on the 

 state of infant societies is particularly manifest- 

 ed, when it concerns portions of people of the 

 same race, who have been recently separated from 

 each other. In traversing the regions of the New 

 World, we imagine that we find more traditions, 

 a greater freshness in the remembrances of the 

 mother country, wherever the climate permits 

 the cultivation of corn. In this point of view, 

 Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Chili, resem- 

 ble those elevated plains of Quito and New 

 Spain, which are covered with oaks and with 

 firs. 



Among the ancients, history, religious opin- 

 ions, and the physical state of a country, were 

 linked together by indissoluble ties. The colo- 

 nist must have renounced the faith transmitted 

 to him by his ancestors, could he have forgotten 

 the aspect of the sites, and the ancient revolu- 

 tions of the mother country. With modern na- 

 tions, religion no longer wears, if I may use the 

 expression, a local tint. Christianity, in fur- 

 nishing new ideas, and opening a wider range 



