August.] DEGRADED STATE OF THE AFRICANS. 297 
the wretched natives of Africa, so that they seem 
ahnost incapable of astonishment or pleasure, 
from any of the charms and wonders of Nature. 
Not one object, however novel, useful, or grand, 
surprises them ; every thing is glanced at as a 
matter of course ; if it be eatable, they seek no 
more than whether the quantity is sufficient to 
fill their stomachs ; then, if they can lie down and 
sleep, they have reached the summit of their 
ambition. This is the highest degree of felicity 
at which they aim; and the man who thus 
indulges himself every day, (which hardly one of 
them can do once a week,) would be considered 
as one of the greatest and happiest men under 
heaven. The insipidity and solitariness of their 
lives, the absence of all interesting occurrences, 
their total ignorance of the rest of mankind, the 
want of employment, nothing having been 
taught them from their youth, seem to entail 
upon them this signal degradation of mind.* 
The Bootshuanas, though very low in the 
scale of humanity, are not by any means sunk to 
* Those who talk so highly of the innocence and happi- 
ness of a state of Nature, may here pause and meditate upon 
this picture of savage life, with which it is only necessary to 
be very superficially acquainted, in order to become convinced 
that whatever may be the evils of civil society, its blessings 
exceedingly outweigh all the boasted advantages of the savage. 
