nities will swarm where now a settler's log-house and enclosure are the only break in the wide surface of verdure. While looking down upon the harvests of Volhynia, or watching the procession of wagons laden with corn, and slowly wending their way down to Odessa, he may securely conclude that no vivacious artisan population will enliven this region for a long time to come; that the inhabitants will continue attached to the despotism under which they live; and that the morals of a despotism-the morals which coexist with gross ignorance and social subservience— may be looked for and found for at least an age. Some preparation may thus be made by a glance over the face of the country. Much depends on whether it is flat or mountainous, pasture or arable land. It appears from fact, too, that much depends on minor circumstances; even on whether it is damp or dry. It is amusing to the traveller in Holland to observe how new points of morals spring up out of its swamps, as in the East from the dryness of the deserts. To injure the piles on which the city is built is at Amsterdam a capital offence; and no inhabitant could outgrow the shame of tampering with the vegetation by which the soil of the dikes is held togeth er. While Irish children are meritoriously employed in gathering rushes to make candles, and sedges for thatch, "the veriest child in Holland would resent as an injury any suspicion that she had rooted up a sedge or a rush which had been planted to strengthen the embankments."* Such are certain points of morals in a country where water is the great enemy. In the East, where drought is the chief foe, it is a crime to defile or stop up a well, and the greatest of social glories is to have made water flow where all before was dry. In Holland, a malignant enemy cuts the dike, as the last act of malice; in Arabia, he fills up the wells. In Holland, a distinct sort of moral feeling seems to have grown up about intemperance in drink. The hu * Travels of Minna and Godfrey in Many Lands, p. 53. M midity of the climate, and the scarcity of clear, wholesome water, obliges the inhabitants to drink much of other liquids. If moderation in them were not made a point of conscience of the first importance, the consequences of their prevalent use would be dreadful. The success of this particular moral effort is great. Drunkenness is almost as rare in Holland as carelessness in keeping accounts and tampering with the dikes. There is no country in the world whose morals have more clearly grown out of its circumstances than Holland. On the theory of an infallible moral sense, it would be as difficult to account for a Dutchman's tenderness of conscience on any of the above three heads, as for a soldier's agony at the imputation of sleeping upon guard, or an Alabama planter's resentment at being charged with putting the alphabet in the way of a mulatto. Having noted the aspect of the country, the observer's next business is to ascertain the condition of the inhabitants as to the supply of the Necessaries of Life. He knows that nothing remains to be learned of the domestic morals of people who are plunged in hopeless poverty. There is no foundation for good morals among such. They herd together, desperate or depressed; they have no prospect; their self-respect is prostrated; they have nothing to lose, there is nothing for them to gain by any effort that they can make. But it is needless to speak of this. When we treat of the domestic morals of any class, it is always presupposed that they are not in circumstances which render total immorality almost inevitable. In agricultural districts, the condition of the inhabitants may be learned by observation of the markets. An observing traveller has said,* "To judge at once of a nation, we have only to throw our eyes on the markets and the fields. If the markets are well supplied, the fields well cultivated, all is right. If otherwise, * Rogers's Italy, p. 172. we may say, and say truly, these people are barbarous and oppressed." This, though a rather sweeping judgment, is founded in truth, and is well worthy of being borne in mind in travelling. It so happens that the negroes of Hayti are abundantly supplied with the necessaries, and with many of the comforts of life; that they are by no means barbarous, and far from being oppressed; and yet they have few roads, and scarcely any markets. They grow up in the midst of plenty; but, when a countryman is about to kill a hog, he sends his son round among his neighbours on horseback, to give notice to any who wish for pork, to send for it on a certain day. Their wretched, barbarous, oppressed countrymen in South Carolina, meanwhile, have excellent markets. The Saturday night's market at Charleston might beguile a careless foreigner into the belief that those who throng it are a free and prosperous people. Thus the rule above quoted does not always hold. Yet it is true that the existence and good quality of markets testify to the existence and good quality of other desirable things. Where markets are abundantly and variously supplied, it is clear that there must be a large demand for the comforts of life, and a diversity of domestic wants. It is clear that there must be industry to meet this demand, and competence to justify it. There must be social security, or the industry and competence would not be put to so hazardous a use. It may happen, as at Charleston, that the capital is the masters' (whose the profits may also be, at any moment); that the industry is called forth by a delusive hope; and that the briskness of the transactions at market is ascribable to the pleasure slaves have in social meetings; but better things may usually be inferred from a well-supplied and well-conducted market. The traveller's other researches in agricultural regions will be into the Tenure of Lands; whether they are held in small separate properties; whether such properties are held by individuals, or shared with any kind of partners; whether portions are rented from landlords; and, if so, whether any order of middlemen are concerned in the business; whether the land is chiefly held by large owners; and, if so, whether the labourers are attached to the soil under feudal arrangements, or whether they are free labourers working for wages. The homes of the agricultural population will be found to vary in aspect as any one of these systems prevails. In young and prosperous countries, the system of small separate properties is found to conduce to independence and the virtues which result from it, though it is not favourable to knowledge and enlightenment. Families live much to themselves; and thus, while forming strong domestic attachments, they lose sight of what is going on in the world. They become unused to the light of society, and get to dislike and fear it. The labourers, in such case, usually live with the family, whether they be brothers, as often happens in Switzerland; sons, as in many a farmhouse of the United States; or hired servants, as in former times in England, and still in some retired parts. In each case the picture is easily filled in by the imagination. All are engaged, throughout the year, in the business of living. The work is never ending, still beginning; or, if it has intervals, they are dull and weary, from the absence of interests where with to occupy them. The employments of life are innocent, and the principle of association is harmless; but if there be ignorance and prejudice in the region, in these farmhouses will they be found; and in company with them morals of a high order are not to be looked for. If small properties are held in partnership, poverty is present or threatening. The condition of affairs cannot be lasting; and this may be well; for narrow means and partnership in a property which requires to be managed by skill are more favourable to discontent and disagreement than to a kindly social state. The middleman system is favourable or unfavourable to morals, just in proportion as it is so to prosperity. Every one knows the wretchedness of it in Ireland, and that there are numerous instances in Italy of the complete success of the métayer plan. Where the land is the property of large owners, and is tilled by labourers, there must be more or less of the feudal temper and manners remaining. Where the labourers are attached to the soil, there must necessarily exist whatever good arises from the certainty of the means of subsistence, coupled with the evils of subservience to the will of the lord, mental sluggishness, and ignorance. Where they are not irremoveably attached to the soil, habit and helplessness have usually much of the same effect. The son hedges, ditches, or ploughs where his father hedged, ditched, or ploughed ; he takes his beer, or cider, or thin wine (according to the country he lives in) at the same house of entertainment, and gossips about the doings of the lord and his family, much as labourers were wont to gossip two hundred years ago. It is the business of the traveller to note which mode of agricultural life prevails, and how the morals which pertain to it are modified by particular circum stances. He must make the same kind of observations on the Manufacturing and Commercial Classes of the country he visits. Here again the chief differences in morals and manners arise out of the comparative prosperity or adversity of the class. Take the cotton manufacture. Passing by the Chinese operative plying his shuttle as he sits under his bamboo shed, and the Hindoo drawing out his fine thread under the shade of the palm, what differences there are among artisans of the same race, Europeans and of European extraction! In Massachusetts there are villages of artisans where whole streets of houses are their property; the church on the green in the midst is theirs; the lyceum, with |