the inclemencies of the feafons, or to the apprehenfion of
dangers from animals of prey, or the no. left dangerous ene-.
mies of their own fpecies. Men are neither bom with'tools;
to build with, nor can be ftfppofed to have intuitively.an innate
idea of any particular form, of habitation, fuch as boun-,
tiful nature has afligned to the beaver, the fwallow, or the
bee ; but man is bom with a native fenfe of his wants, andj
with judgement and intellectual powers to improve his fitya-
tion.by fuch means as the country affords,, and as, the climate
will fuggeft.
T hus far I can venture to Rate, not only from what I have
read, but likewife by a ftronger conviction, from what I have-
feen in the various dimates and parts of the world .in .which,
I have beheld mankind, in almoft every Rage of negative or
pofitive civilization.
T h e hollow tree, and the thick foliage o f the foreft, into
which even Kings of Ithaca and Britain have retired, are. fit**
ter for occafional than for permanent refidence. They appear
evidently imitated in the wigwams of the torpid, wretched,
unfetded Pecherais on the frozen coaft of Terra del Fuego j
of the equally independent,-but not more fortunate New Hollanders,
in a milder climate; and of the more civilized and
fagacious hunting favages of North America.
T h ese wigwams, nearly the fame eveiy where as to form,
differ in various countries only in the nature of the materials
they are built with, hich%s'th'ë>-boughs öf trees, fhrubs,
creeping plants, reeds, fbdts, and grafs, Now, i f any of thefe
wandering families of hunters and fifliermen fhould become**
Rationary, or form into larger focieties, they would fooh be
d-ifpofed to give to' their habitations as .much durability and
coHVeniency as their climates, materials-,- iarid mânnernf life
would admit of ; nor is it probable they would lofé fight o f
their prototype, the wigwam, or materially deviate from it
in the external form of their more capacious, erection. For
confiant refidence, thefe would be improved into the various
thatches and huts which I have feen in the Soùth-fea Iflands,
and which the Negroes on the Coaft of Guinea, and the
Hottentots, inhabit ,• high and low, circular or fquare, open,
at all tides, inclofed with palifades, matting, or wicker-work,-
hurdles, lattice, or niiid walls. They will raife them on piles
above the ground j and, as' it were, fufpend them in the airain
countries' where the dampnefs of the foil, or fudden inundations,'
would endanger their lives , and property j as on the
banks of the Marannon, or Orobnoko, in Guinea, and in the
inland parts of Surinam: they will keep them low, and, às
it were, fink them under ground, in colder climates, where
heavy blafts of wind and fnow teach them fuch methods of
felf-defence. Wandering nations, of herdfmen, fifhermen,
and warriorsi fuch as the Arabs, Calmucks, Monguls, Ton-
quefees, Tartars, Efquimeaux, Greenlanders, Laplanders, Sa-
mójedes, ■ and Oftiacksi find in the fkins of their cattle, of