[86] Monogamy, the great care employed by parents to get their daughters married, the want of nunneries, the great honour in which marriage is held in India, and the little expence required for educating and clothing children, are the real causes of the increase of population in that country. Even among us the middle and lower classes would produce more children were they not afraid of the expences of education. _F._ [87] I have, in general, observed, that the small-pox are malignant where the body, in order to prevent perspiration, is frequently rubbed over with fat or oily substances. Dirtiness, immoderation, or luxury in eating and drinking, and particularly the use of heating things, greatly increase the malignity of the disease. A confirmation of what I have here asserted, may be found in America, at the Cape of Good Hope, in Africa among the Negroes, and among the Calmucks in Russia. Among people who employ the warm bath, as the Russians, Turks, Persians, &c. the small-pox are less malignant. _F._ [88] That the polygamy of the Mahometans and Indians of higher rank does not contribute to population is certain: for, 1st, polygamy deprives many a male of a female; 2d, it occasions more female children to be born, and consequently destroys the true proportion so well suited to monogamy.--Perhaps the polyandria of the women among the Nayrs causes more males to be brought into the world, and thus supplies the deficiency. [89] It is well known, that the ancient Greek authors have observed, in regard to the Indian literati and persons of rank, that they lived in woods, and places planted with palm-trees.--The intelligent reader will here recollect Otaheite, where those who are under no necessity of exposing themselves to the sun and the sea air, have a pale-brown colour, inclining to yellow; and where the complexion of the most beautiful women approaches nearer to the colour of the Europeans than that of the men, so that an agreeable ruddiness can be seen to flush in their cheeks when they are animated. The _Tautaus_, or labouring class, are much browner; so that one might believe they belong to another race. _F._ [90] Bruce also, during his travels through Arabia, observed that the women soon acquired every mark of old age, and that they left off child-bearing at an early period. This, perhaps, has given rise to polygamy in Arabia. _F._