Travels In The United States Of America; Commencing In The Year 1793, And Ending In 1797. With The Author's Journals Of His Two Voyages Across The Atlantic By William Priest
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This
Greater Degree Of Transpiration Renders Them More Tolerant Of Heat, And
Less So Of Cold, Than The Whites.
Perhaps a difference of structure in the
pulmonary aparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist, (Crawford) has
discovered to be
The principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled
them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid
from the outer air; or obliged them, in expiration, to part with more of
it.
"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the
day, will be induced by the slightest amusement, to sit up till midnight,
or later, though knowing he must be out with the dawn of the morning. They
are at least as brave, and more adventurous; but this may proceed from
want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be
present; when present, they do not go through it with more coolness and
steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after the female; but
love seems with them more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture
of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless
afflictions which render it doubtful, whether Heaven has given life to us
more in mercy, or in wrath, are less felt and sooner forgotten with them.
In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than
reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep, when
abstracted from their diversions, or unemployed in labour. An animal,
whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep
of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and
imagination, it appears to me that in memory, they are equal to the
whites; in reason much inferiour. As I think one could scarcely be found
capable of tracing, and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and
that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be
unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider
them here, on the same stage with the whites. And where the facts are not
apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed, it will be right to make
allowances for the difference of condition, of conversation, and of the
sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and
born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to
their own homes, and their own society; yet many have been so situate,
that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their
masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that
circumstance have always been associated with the whites; some have been
liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and
sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before
their eyes samples of the best work from abroad. The Indians with no
advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes, not
destitute of merit and design.
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