Pray Is The
Sterility Of The Soil The Cause That There Are No Trees, Or Is It
Because There Are None Planted?
What are the modern families of all
the kings of the earth, compared to the date of that of Mr. Neiel?
Admitting that each generation should last but forty years, this
makes a period of 1200; an extraordinary duration for the
uninterrupted descent of any family!
Agreeably to the description he
gave us of those countries, they seem to live according to the rules
of nature, which gives them but bare subsistence; their
constitutions are uncontaminated by any excess or effeminacy, which
their soil refuses. If their allowance of food is not too scanty,
they must all be healthy by perpetual temperance and exercise; if
so, they are amply rewarded for their poverty. Could they have
obtained but necessary food, they would not have left it; for it was
not in consequence of oppression, either from their patriarch or the
government, that they had emigrated. I wish we had a colony of these
honest people settled in some parts of this province; their morals,
their religion, seem to be as simple as their manners. This society
would present an interesting spectacle could they be transported on
a richer soil. But perhaps that soil would soon alter everything;
for our opinions, vices, and virtues, are altogether local: we are
machines fashioned by every circumstance around us.
Andrew arrived at my house a week before I did, and I found my wife,
agreeable to my instructions, had placed the axe in his hands, as
his first task.
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