parents and children they are little more than indifferent; with them the bands of the most intimate of all society, are feeble, nor is there the smallest connection between one family and another; of course they have no social state among them; cold in temperament, their manners are cruel, their women they treat as drudges born to labour, or rather as beasts of burthen, whom they load with all the produce of the chace, and whom they oblige, without pity or gratitude, to perform offices repugnant to their natures, and frequently beyond their strength. They have few children, and to those they pay little attention. The whole arises from one cause; they are indifferent because they are weak, and this indifference to the female is the original stain which defaces nature, prevents her from expanding, and, while it destroys the seeds of life, strikes at the root of society. Man, therefore, forms no exception; for Nature, by retrenching the faculty of love, has diminished him more than any other animal. Before we examine the causes of this general effect, it must be acknowledged, that although Nature has reduced all the quadrupeds of the new world, yet she has preserved the size of reptiles, and enlarged that of insects; for although there are larger lizards and larger serpents at Senegal than in South America, yet in these animals the difference is not near so great as in the quadrupeds; the largest serpent at Senegal is not twice as large as the great adder of Cayenne, whereas the elephant is ten times as big as the tapir, which is the largest animal of South America. In no part are the insect tribes so large as in South America. At Cayenne, the spiders, caterpillars, and butterflies, surpass all the insects of the old continent, not only as to size, but in richness of colours, delicacy of shades, variety of forms, number of species, and the prodigious multiplication of individuals. The toads, frogs, and other creatures of this kind, are also very large in America. Of the birds and fish we shall say nothing; for since they possess the power of migrating from one continent to the other, it would be almost impossible to distinguish which properly belongs to either, but insects and reptiles, like quadrupeds, are confined nearly to the spot in which they came into existence. [Footnote B: Mr. Vaillant says, that the Hottentots will sleep for two or three days together, either from hunger or excess in eating; for, when hungry, indolence has suggested to them the expedient of sleeping instead of the labour of seeking for food, and that by tying a bandage round their bellies they can do so for the above space, without experiencing any consequent inconvenience.]