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Of the general checks to population, &c.

means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by some very powerful and obvious checks.'

3. These checks, and the checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral restaint, vice, and misery.

The first of these propositions scarcely needs illustration. The second and third will be suf ficiently established by a review of the immediate checks to population in the past and present state of society.

This review will be the subject of the following chapters.

'I have expressed myself in this cautious manner, because I believe there are a very few instances, such as the negroes in the West Indies, and one or two others, where population does not keep up to the level of the means of subsistence. But these are extreme cases; and generally speaking it might be said (and the propositions in this form would be more neatly and distinctly expressed.)

2. Population always increases where the means of subsistence increase.

3. The checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice, and misery.

CHAPTER III.

Of the Checks to Population in the lowest stage of Human society.

THE wretched inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego have been placed by the general consent of voyagers at the bottom of the scale of human beings. Of their domestic habits and manners, however, we have few accounts. Their barren country, and the miserable state in which they live, have prevented any intercourse with them that might give such information; but we cannot be at a loss to conceive the checks to population among a race of savages, whose very appearance indicates them to be half starved, and who, shivering with cold, and covered with filth and vermin, live in one of the most inhospitable climates in the world, without having sagacity enough to provide themselves with such conveniencies as might mitigate its severities, and render life in some measure more comfortable.2

1 Cook's First Voy. vol. ii. p. 59.
2 Second Voy. vol. ii. p. 186.

Of the checks to population in

Next to these, and almost as low in genius and resources, have been placed the natives of Van Diemen's land;' but some late accounts have represented the islands of Andaman in the east as inhabited by a race of savages still lower in wretchedness even than these. Eyery thing that voyages have related of savage life is said to fall short of the barbarism of this people. Their whole time is spent in search of food; and as their woods yield them few or no supplies of animals, and but little vegetable diet, their principal occupation is that of climbing the rocks, or roving along the margin of the sea, in search of a precarious meal of fish, which, during the tempestuous season, they often seek for in vain. Their stature seldom exceeds five feet, their bellies are protuberant, with high shoulders, large heads, and limbs disproportionably slender. Their countenances exhibit the extreme of wretchedness, a horrid mixture of famine and ferocity; and their extenuated and diseased figures plainly indicate the want of wholesome nourishment. Some of thes unhappy beings have been found on the shores in the last stage of famine."

1 Vancouver's Voy, vol. ii. b. iii. c. i. p. 13.

2 Symes' Embassy to Ava, ch. i. p. 129. and Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 401.

the lowest stage of human society.

In the next scale of human beings we may place the inhabitants of New Holland, of a part of whom we have some accounts that may be depended upon, from a person who resided a considerable time at Port Jackson, and had frequent opportunities of being a witness to their habits and manners. The narrator of captain Cook's first voyage having mentioned the very small number of inhabitants that was seen on the eastern coast of New Holland, and the apparent inability of the country, from its desolate state, to support many more, observes, "By what means the inhabitants "of this country are reduced to such a number "as it can subsist, is not perhaps very easy to guess; whether, like the inhabitants of New "Zealand, they are destroyed by the hands of each "other in contests for food, whether they are swept off by accidental famine, or whether there "is any cause that prevents the increase of the species, must be left for future adventurers to "determine." "

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The account which Mr. Collins has given of these savages will, I hope, afford in some degree a satisfactory answer. They are described as, in

'Cook's First Voy. vol. iii. p. 240.

Of the checks to population in

general, neither tall nor well made. Their arms, legs, and thighs, are thin, which is ascribed to the poorness of their mode of living. Those who inhabit the sea coast depend almost entirely on fish for their sustenance, relieved occasionally by a repast on some large grubs which are found in the body of the dwarf gum tree. The very scanty stock of animals in the woods, and the very great labor necessary to take them, keep the inland natives in as poor a condition as their brethren on the coast. They are compelled to climb the tallest trees after honey, and the smaller animals, such as the flying squirrel and the opossum. When the stems are of great height, and without branches, which is generally the case in thick forests, this is a process of great labor, and is ef fected by cutting a notch with their stone hatchets for each foot successively, while their left arm embraces the tree. Trees were observed notched in this manner to the height of eighty feet before the first branch, where the hungry savage could hope to meet with any reward for so much toil.'

The woods, exclusive of the animals occasion

1 Collins's account of New South Wales, Appendix, P. 549. 4to

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