VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY OF SOUTHERN I-ANDS.
945
From thefe remarks will be gathered that the extreme inactivity of the people ofTimor is the elfential caufe of their want of vigour.
Still, conducive to it is the temperature of the ifiand, and that hot and moift atmo-fphere whofe baneful effefts on health we experienced fo fatally.' Preferved in fomedegree from its morbid influence by cold baths, by fri&ion, by a multiplicity of bitterand aromatic fubftances, but molt efpecially by the preparation of betel, which theyufe for reftoring its tone to the ftomach, the debilitating powers of the humid atmo-fphere are (till felt in fpite of the neutralizing antidotes.
Thefe laft fads correfpond with the refults obtained by M. Coulumb, whofe tefti-mony, valuable in itfelf, is further corroborated by numerous experiments. “ Themean capability of labour in man,” fays he, “ varies according to the climate. I hadthe direction of confiderable works at Martinico, in which the troops were employed,where the thermometer is rarely below 20° # : the fame kind of works were executedalfo under my infpeCtion in France ; and I can from experience fafely affirm, that in14° of latitude, where men are conftantly bathed in their perfpiration, they are inca-pable of half the daily labour to which they are accuftomed in our climates.”
The high temperature therefore of Timor, the conftant dampnefs of the air, andthe indolent life of the inhabitants, in my opinion, furnilh colleftively a fatisfa&oryexplanation of the weaknefs peculiar to the firft of the three people of which we haveto fpeak. But here we muff allow that the degree of civilization does not appear tohave any elfential or immediate influence on the ftrength of the people. Far other-wife is it with the Diemenefe and the inhabitants of New Holland.
id. New Holland and Diemen's Land.
Nature feems to have atted the part of a ftep-mother towards the people of theferegions. The vegetable kingdom fcarcely yields any thing : never did we meet herewith any edible fruit that grew to the fize of a cherry ; nor are any nutritious rootsknown other than of fern or archys. Neither does the animal kingdom prefent anyfpecies of tolerable dimenfions but the caflowary and the kanguroo, both the one andthe other become rare on the continent from their being fo conftantly purfued. Thefilhery indeed might furnilh a more abundant refource for the inhabitants, and onemore certain ; but the imperfection of their inftruments and mode of filhing, winterwith the inhabitants of Diemen’s Land, frequent ftorms with thofe of New Holland;and, above all, the migrations of the filh, all concur to render this laft dependenceprecarious, and fometimes abfolutely null. Then it is that thofe dreadful famines takeplace, the lamentable confequences of which Governor Phillips had himfelf occafionto witnefs Ihortly after his arrival: “ There,” fays M. Collins, “ the unfortunatenatives were reduced to fuch a ftarved condition, as to refemble fo many Ikeletons, andfeem on the point of perilhing.” The productions of the fea are of no avail even tothofe repulfed to the interior of the country: thefe fublift on frogs, lizards, ferpents,various larvse, and particularly on the large fnails which collect in bunches big as thehead round the branches of the refinous eucalyptus. Spiders even, as in New Cale-donia , form part of their difgufting food: in many inftances thefe wretched hordesare reduced to live on certain herbage and the bark of trees; in fine, there is nothing,not even the numerous ants which devaftate the foil, but they are forced to ufe for
* Here Reaumur’s thermometer cannot be meant, but the centigrade, as on the former 20° is equal tono more than 68° of Fahrenheit, whereas the temperature of Martinique is conftantly higher than this.
By the centigrade thermometer 20’ is equal to 77 0 of Fahrenheit. Tr.
VOL. XI. 6 E
nutriment.