Note 214-3 — Chapter I

The "happy, contented negroes," as Lord John Russel called them, work in Jamaica, on an average, only one hour a day since their emancipation. (Colonial Magazine, Nov. 1849, 458.) Egypt, India, etc., from time immemorial, the classic lands of monkish laziness. Compare Hume, Discourses, No. 1, on Commerce. On the other hand, the person who has six months before him for which he must labor and lay up a store, if he would not famish or freeze, must necessarily be active and frugal; and there are other virtues which go along with these. (List, System der polit. Oek., I, 304.) According to Humboldt, the change of seasons compels man to get accustomed to different kinds of food, and thus fits him to migrate. The inhabitants of tropical countries are, on the other hand, like caterpillars, which cannot emigrate nor be made to emigrate, on account of the uniform nature of their food.