Note 244-7 — Chapter II

The usual coldness, so much spoken of, of the Indians, seems to have an economic rather than a physiological cause. At least, it has also been observed among the Hottentots. (Levillant, Voyage, I, 12 seq.), and under favorable economic conditions the Indians have sometimes increased very rapidly. (Lettres édifiantes, VIII, 243.) Whether the practice in vogue among the Botocuds to carry the organ of generation continually in a rather narrow envelope, or that among the Patachos of lacing the foreskin with the tendrils of a plant, is not a "preventive check," quære. Compare Prinz Neuwied, Bras. Reise, II, 10; I, 226.