3 
instance some of the Dutch colonists in the South of Africa. 
Take for example the Vee-boers, or Graziers, the most uncivil- 
ized of the European settlers in the Cape districts ; — often 
individually possessing as many as 5,000 acres, yet living in 
hovels, fit only for savages. Of these huts, or hovels, the 
leading features are, “ a clay floor ” (in the pits of which are 
splashes of sour milk, or mud) — a roof open to the thatch,” 
— “ a square hole or two in the wall for windows,” — and an 
old rug or blanket separating the sleeping apartment.” As 
for furniture, its inventory is — “ a large chest, which serves as 
a table at home or a seat in a waggon ,” — “ a few rickety 
stools with bottoms of the thongs of sheepskins ,” — “ a bed- 
stead or two of the same fashion ,” — “ an iron pot and a few 
dishes.” Meanwhile the children of these people run wild 
among the Hottentots ; and outside their wretched dwellings 
lie heaped up accumulations of cattle-dung, which they seldom, 
if ever, care to remove.* 
Our argument, in this case, is from the less to the greater. 
W e say, if the representatives of a civilized and refined people 
in Europe, by thus being cut off from contact with civilization 
in a strange land, can thus deteriorate and degenerate ; and if 
this degradation can take place within the history of our own 
times; — how much more likely were similar and far more 
exaggerated results to take place in earlier periods of the 
world's history, when civilized races were separated from their 
parent stocks, and left to struggle on in isolated seclusion 
among difficulties of climate and nature, without any incen- 
tives to self-respect, and without any external aids to the 
recovery of their forfeited inheritance ? 
Other causes have produced similar effects, such as long 
and devastating wars, and chronic periods of civil discord. 
This has been the case with Abyssinia, the present state of 
which is savage compared with its condition in ancient times, 
when Axum, its capital city, was filled with obelisks having 
Greek inscriptions, and bore evident marks of a fair civiliza- 
tion. Gibbon tells us that, in the sixth century, the vessels of 
Abyssinia traded to the island of Ceylon, while seven king- 
doms obeyed its king.f And that, when the Roman emperor 
Justinian sought an alliance with the Abyssinian monarch, 
his ambassador was received by him in all the trappings of 
state, being covered with gold chains, collars, and bracelets, 
richly adorned with pearls and precious stones. J Contrast 
* BeIVs System of Geography, vol. iv. p. 73. 
t Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, vol. vii. p. 342. 
t Idem, p. 343. 
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