436 TRAVELS IN 
the village green, now totally unknown ; and cheerfulnefs and 
converfation would fucceed to the prefent ftupid lounging about 
the houfe, fullen filence, and torpid apathy. The acquaint- 
ance with new objeds would beget new ideas, roufing the 
dormant powers of the mind to energy, and of the body to ac- 
tion. By degrees, as he became more civilized by focial inter- 
courfe, humanity as well as his intereft would teach him to give 
encouragement to the Hottentots in his employ to engage in 
ufeful labour, and to feel, like himfelf, the benefits ariilng from 
honeft induftry. 
The eflablifhment of villages jn an extenfive country thinly 
peopled may be confidered as the firft ftep to a higher ftate 
of civilization. A town or a village, like the heart in the 
animal frame, colleds, receives, and difperfes the moft valuable 
produds of the country of which it is the centre, giving life 
and energy and activity by the conftant circulation which it 
promotes. Whereas while men continue to be thinly fcattered 
over a country, although they may have within their reach all 
the neceflaries of life in a fuperfluity, they will have very few of 
its comforts or even of its moft ordinary conveniences. Without 
a mutual intercourfe and affiftance among men, life would be a 
conftant fucceftion of make-fhifts and fubftitutions. 
The good effeds refulting from fuch meafures are not to be 
expeded as the work of a day, but they are fuch as might, in 
time, be brought about. It would not, however, be attended 
with much difficulty to bring the people clofer together, and to 
3 furnifli 
