Papa. You may remember, Lucy, that I talked to you sometime ago about the earth’s motion round the sun.

Lucy. Yes, papa; and you said you would tell me another time something about the other planets.

Pa. I mean some day to take you to the lecture of an ingenious philosopher, who has contrived a machine that will give you a better notion of these things in an hour, than I could by mere talking in a week. But it is now my intention to make you better acquainted with this globe which we inhabit, and which, indeed, is the most important to us. Cast your eyes upon this little ball. You see it is a representation of the earth, being covered with a painted map of the world. This map is crossed with lines in various directions; but all you have to observe relative to what I am going to talk about, is the great line across the middle called the equator or equinoctial line, and the two points at top and bottom called the poles, of which the uppermost is the northern, the lowermost the southern.

Lu. I see them.

Pa. Now, the sun, which illuminates all the parts of this globe by turns as they roll round before it, shines directly upon the equator, but darts its rays aslant toward the poles; and this is the cause of the great heat perceived in the middle regions of the earth, and of its gradual diminution as you proceed from them on either side toward the extremities. To use a familiar illustration, it is like a piece of meat roasting before a fire, the middle part of which is liable to be overdone, while the two ends are raw.

Lu. I can comprehend that.

Pa. From this simple circumstance some of the greatest differences on the surface of the earth, with respect to man, other animals, and vegetables, proceed; for heat is the great principle of life and vegetation; and where it most prevails, provided it be accompanied with due moisture, nature is most replenished with all sorts of living and growing things. In general, then, the countries lying on each side about the equator, and forming a broad belt round the globe, called the tropics, or torrid zone, are rich and exuberant in their products to a degree much superior to what we see in our climates. Trees and other plants shoot to a vast size, and are clothed in perpetual verdure, and loaded with flowers of the gayest colours and sweetest fragrance, succeeded by fruits of high flavour or abundant nutriment. The insect tribe is multiplied so as to fill all the air, and many of them astonish by their size and extraordinary forms, and the splendour of their hues. The ground is all alive with reptiles, some harmless, some armed with deadly poisons.

Lu. O, but I should not like that at all!

Pa. The birds, however, decked in the gayest plumage conceivable, must give unmixed delight; and a tropical forest, filled with parrots, macaws, and peacocks, and enlivened with the gambols of monkeys and other nimble quadrupeds, must be a very amusing spectacle. The largest of quadrupeds, too, the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus, are natives of these regions; and not only these sublime and harmless animals, but the terrible lion, the cruel tiger, and all the most ravenous beasts of prey, are here found in their greatest bulk and fierceness.

Lu. That would be worse than the insects and reptiles.

Pa. The sea likewise is filled with inhabitants of an immense variety of size and figure; not only fishes, but tortoises, and all the shelly tribes. The shores are spread with shells of a beauty unknown to our coasts; for it would seem as if the influence of the solar heat penetrated into the farthest recesses of nature.

Lu. How I should like to ramble on the seaside there!

Pa. But the elements, too, are there upon a grand and terrific scale. The sky either blazes with intolerable beams, or pours down rain in irresistible torrents. The winds swell to furious hurricanes, which often desolate the whole face of nature in a day. Earthquakes rock the ground, and sometimes open it in chasms which swallow up entire cities. Storms raise the waves of the ocean into mountains, and drive them in a deluge to the land.

Lu. Ah! that would spoil my shell-gathering. These countries may be very fine, but I don’t like them.

Pa. Well, then—we will turn from them to the temperate regions. You will observe, on looking at the map, that these chiefly lie on the northern side of the tropics; for on the southern side the space is almost wholly occupied by sea. Though geographers have drawn a boundary line between the torrid and temperate zones, yet nature has made none; and for a considerable space on the borders, the diminution of heat is so gradual as to produce little difference in the appearance of nature. But, in general, the temperate zones or belts form the most desirable districts on the face of the earth. Their products are extremely various, and abound in beauty and utility. Corn, wine, and oil, are among their vegetable stores: the horse, the ox, and the sheep, graze their verdant pastures. Their seasons have the pleasing vicissitudes of summer and winter, spring and autumn. Though in some parts they are subject to excess of heat, and in others of cold, yet they deserve the general praise of a mild temperature compared to the rest of the globe.

Lu. They are the countries for me, then.

Pa. You do live in one of them, though our island is situated so far to the north that it ranks rather among the cold countries than the warm ones. However, we have the good fortune to be a long way removed from those dreary and comfortless tracts of the globe which lie about the poles, and are called the frigid zones. In these, the cheering influence of the sun gradually becomes extinct, and perpetual frost and snow take possession of the earth. Trees and plants diminish in number and size, till at length no vegetables are found but some mosses and a few stunted herbs. Land animals are reduced to three or four species—raindeer, white bears, and arctic foxes. The sea, however, as far as it remains free from ice, is all alive with aquatic birds, and with the finny tribe. Enormous whales spout and gambol among the floating ice-islands, and herds of seals pursue the shoals of smaller fish, and harbour in the caverns of the rocky coasts.

Lu. Then I suppose these creatures have not much to do with the sun?

Pa. Nature has given them powers of enduring cold beyond those of many other animals; and then the water is always warmer than the land in cold climates; nay, at a certain depth, it is equally warm in all parts of the globe.

Lu. Well, but as I cannot go to the bottom of the sea, I desire to have nothing to do with these dismal countries. But do any men live there?

Pa. It is one of the wonderful things belonging to man, that he is capable of living in all parts of the globe where any other animals live. And as nothing relative to this earth is so important to us as the condition of human creatures in it, suppose we take a general survey of the different races of men who inhabit all the tracts we have been speaking of?

Lu. Blacks, and whites, and all colours?

Pa. Surely. If a black dog is as much a dog as a white one, why should not a black man be as much a man? I know nothing that colour has to do with mind. Well, then—to go back to the equator. The middle or tropical girdle of the earth, which by the ancients was concluded to be uninhabitable from its extreme heat, has been found by modern discoveries to be as well filled with men as it is with other living creatures. And no wonder; for life is maintained here at less cost than elsewhere. Clothes and fuel are scarcely at all necessary. A shed of bamboo covered with palm-leaves serves for a house; and food is almost the spontaneous produce of nature. The bread-fruit, the cocoa, the banana, and the plantain, offer their stores freely to the gatherer; and if he takes the additional pains to plant a few yams, or sow a little Indian corn, he is furnished with never-failing plenty. Hence the inhabitants of many tropical countries live nearly in what is called a state of nature, without care or labour, using the gifts of Providence like the animals around them. The naked Indian, stretched at ease under the shade of a lofty tree, passes his hours in indolent repose, unless roused to temporary exertion by the passion of the chase, or the love of dancing and other social sports.

Lu. Well—that would be a charming life!

Pa. So the poet Thomson seemed to think, when he burst into a rapturous description of the beauties and pleasures afforded by these favoured regions. Perhaps you can remember some of his lines?

Lu. I will try.

Pa. Delightful! Think, however, at what price they purchase this indolent enjoyment of life. In the first place, all the work that is done is thrown upon the women, who are always most tyrannized over, the nearer a people approach to a state of nature.

Lu. O, horrible! I am glad I do not live there.

Pa. Then the mind not having that spur to exertion which necessity alone can give, moulders in inaction, and becomes incapable of those advances in knowledge and vigour which raise and dignify the human character.

Lu. But that is the same with lazy people everywhere.

Pa. True. The excessive heat, however, of these countries seems of itself to relax the mind, and unfit it for its noblest exertions. And I question if a single instance could be produced of an original inhabitant of the tropics, who had attained to eminence in the higher walks of science. It is their general character to be gay, volatile, and thoughtless, subject to violent passions, but commonly mild and gentle, fond of society and amusements, ingenious in little arts, but incapable of great or long-continued efforts. They form a large portion of the human race, and probably not the least happy. You see what vast tracts of land lie within this division; most of Africa and South America, all the great islands of Asia and two of its large peninsulas. Of these the Asiatic part is the most populous and civilized; indeed, many of its nations are as far removed from a state of nature as we are, and their constitutional indolence has been completely overcome by necessity. The clothing of those who are in a civilized state is mostly made of cotton, which is a natural product of those climates. Their food is chiefly of the vegetable kind and besides the articles already mentioned, consists much of rice.

Lu. Are the people all black?

Pa. Yes; entirely or nearly so.

Lu. I suppose that is owing to the heat of the sun.

Pa. Undoubtedly; for we find all the shades from jet black to tawny, and at length white, as we proceed from the equator toward the poles. The African negroes, however, from their curled woolly hair and their flat features, have been supposed an originally distinct race of mankind. The East Indian blacks, though under an equally hot climate, have long flowing hair, and features not different from their fairer neighbours. Almost all these nations are subject to despotic governments. In religion they are mostly pagans, with a mixture of Mohammedans.

Lu. I think we have had enough about these people.

Pa. Well, then—look again on the globe to the northern side of the tropics, and see what a tour we shall take among the inhabitants of the north temperate zone. Here are all the most famous places on the earth; rich, populous countries, renowned at different periods for arts and arms. Here is the greatest part of Asia, a little of Africa, all Europe, and North America.

Lu. I suppose, however, there must be great differences both in the climate and the way of life, in so many countries?

Pa. Extremely great. The southern parts partake a good deal of the character of the tropical regions. The heat is still excessive, and renders exertion painful; whence the people have in general been reckoned soft, effeminate, and voluptuous. Let us, however, look at them a little closer. Here is the mighty empire of China, swarming with people to such a degree, that, notwithstanding its size and fertility, the inhabitants are obliged to exert the greatest industry to procure the necessaries of life. Nearly in a line with it are the Mogul’s Empire, the kingdom of Persia, and the Turkish dominions in Asia; all warm climates abounding in products of use and beauty, and inhabited by numerous and civilized people. Here stretches out the great peninsula of Arabia, for the most part a dry and desert land, overspread with burning sands, only to be crossed by the patient camel. Wild and ferocious tribes of men wander over it, chiefly supported by their herds and flocks, and by the trade of robbery, which they exercise on all travellers that fall in their way. A tract somewhat similar, though in a colder climate, is the vast country of Tartary, stretching like a belt from east to west across the middle of Asia; over the immense plains and deserts of which, a number of independent tribes continually roam, fixing their moveable habitations in one part or another, according as they afford pasturage to their herds of cattle and horses. These men have for many ages lived in the same simple state, unacquainted as well with the arts as the vices of civilized nations.

Lu. Well. I think it must be a very pleasant life to ramble about from place to place, and change one’s abode according to the season.

Pa. The Tartars think so; for the worst wish they can find for man, is that he may live in a house and work like a Russian. Now look at Europe. See what a small figure it makes on the surface of the globe as to size; and yet it has for many ages held the first place in knowledge, activity, civilization, and all the qualities that elevate man among his fellows. For this it is much indebted to that temperature of climate which calls forth all the faculties of man in order to render life comfortable, yet affords enough of the beauties of nature to warm the heart and exalt the imagination. Men here earn their bread with the sweat of their brow. Nature does not drop her fruits into their mouths, but offers them as the price of labour. Human wants are many. Clothes, food, lodging, are all objects of much care and contrivance, but the human powers fully exerted are equal to the demand; and nowhere are enjoyments so various and multiplied. What the land does not yield itself, its inhabitants by their active industry procure from the remotest parts of the globe. When we drink tea, we sweeten the infusion of a Chinese herb with the juice of a West Indian cane; and your common dress is composed of materials collected from the equator to the frigid zone. Europeans render all countries and climates familiar to them; and everywhere they assume a superiority over the less enlightened or less industrious natives.

Lu. Then Europe for me, after all! But is not America as good?

Pa. That part of North America which has been settled by Europeans, is only another Europe in manners and civilization. But the original inhabitants of that extensive country were bold and hardy barbarians, and many of them continue so to this day. So much for the temperate zone, which contains the prime of mankind. They differ extremely, however, in government, laws, customs, and religions. The Christian religion has the credit of reckoning among its votaries all the civilized people of Europe and America. The Mahometan possesses all the nearer parts of Asia, and the north of Africa, but China, Japan, and most of the circumjacent countries, profess different forms of paganism. The East, in general, is enslaved to despotism; but the nobler West enjoys in most of its states more or less of freedom.

As to the frigid zone, its few inhabitants can but just sustain a life little better than that of the brutes. Their faculties are benumbed by the climate. Their chief employment is the fishery or the chase, by which they procure their food. The tending of herds of raindeer in some parts varies their occupations and diet. They pass their long winters in holes dug underground, where they doze out most of their time in stupid repose.

Lu. I wonder any people should stay in such miserable places!

Pa. Yet none of the inhabitants of the globe seem more attached to their country and way of life. Nor do they, indeed, want powers to render their situation tolerably comfortable. Their canoes, and fishing, and hunting tackle, are made with great ingenuity; and their clothing is admirably adapted to fence against the rigours of cold. They are not without some amusements to cheer the gloom of their condition: but they are abjectly superstitious, and given to fear and melancholy.

Lu. If I had my choice, I would rather go to a warmer than a colder country.

Pa. Perhaps the warmer countries are pleasanter; but there are few advantages which are not balanced by some inconveniences; and it is the truest wisdom to be contented with our lot, and endeavour to make the best of it. One great lesson, however, I wish you to derive from this globe-lecture. You see that no part of the world is void of our human brethren, who, amid all the diversities of character and condition, are yet all men, filling the station in which their Creator has placed them. We are too apt to look at the differences of mankind, and to undervalue all those who do not agree with us in matters that we think of high importance. But who are we—and what cause have we to think ourselves right, and all others wrong? Can we imagine that hundreds of millions of our species in other parts of the world are left destitute of what is essential to their well-being, while a favoured few like ourselves are the only ones who possess it? Having all a common nature, we must necessarily agree in more things than we differ in. The road to virtue and happiness is alike open to all. The mode of pursuit is various: the end is the same.