nd Italy, by having more of the character of an inland region.
The diversity of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer
and winter more severe. In Arcadia the snow has been found eighteen
inches thick in January, with the thermometer at 16 deg. Fahrenheit, and it
sometimes lies on the ground for six weeks. The summits of the central
chains of Pindus and most of the Albanian mountains are covered with
snow from the beginning of November to the end of March. In Attica,
which, being freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular
climate, the winter sets in about the beginning of January. About the
middle of that month the snow begins to fall, but seldom remains upon
the plain for more than a few days, though it lies on the summit of the
mountain for a month.[23] And then, whilst Boeotia, which joins to
Attica, is higher and colder, and often covered with dense fogs, Attica
is remarkable for the wonderful transparency, dryness, and elasticity of
its atmosphere. All these climatal conditions exerted, no doubt, a
modifying influence upon the character of the inhabitants.[24] In a
tropical climate man is enfeebled by excessive heat. His natural
tendency is to inaction and repose. His life is passed in a "strenuous
idleness." His intellectual, his reflective faculties are overmastered
by his physical instincts. Passion, sentiment, imagination prevail over
the sober exercises of his reasoning powers. Poetry universally
predominates over philosophy. The whole character of Oriental language,
religion, literature is intensely imaginative. In the frozen regions of
the frigid zone, where a perpetual winter reigns, and where lichens and
mosses are the only forms of vegetable life, man is condemned to the
life of a huntsman, and depends mainly for his subsistence on the
precarious chances of the chase. He is consequently nomadic in his
habits, and barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare
process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous
food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a
dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of
food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons
of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no
motive, no opportunity, and indeed no disposition for mental culture.
But in a temperate climate man is stimulated to high mental activity.
The alternations of heat and c