g, from being habituated to the full drapery: this gait has
become natural to them, and in their European trousers they walk in the
same manner. They wear wide-topped loose boots, which push up their
trousers. Wellington boots would be still more inconvenient, as they
must slip them off six times a day for prayers. In this new dress they
cannot with comfort sit or kneel on the ground, as is their custom; and
they will thus be led to use chairs; and with chairs they will want
tables. But, were these to be introduced, their houses would be too low,
for their heads would almost touch the ceiling. Thus by a little
innovation might their whole usages be unhinged."

5.

4. In these failures, however, should they turn out to be such, the _vis
inertiae_ of habit is not the whole account of the matter; an
antagonistic principle is at work, characteristic of the barbarian, and
intimately present to the mind of a Turk--national pride. All nations,
indeed, are proud of themselves; but, as being the first and the best,
not as being the solitary existing perfection, among the inhabitants of
the earth. Civilized nations allow that foreigners have their specific
excellences, and such excellences as are a lesson to themselves. They
may think too well of their own proficiency, and may lose by such
blindness; but they admit enough about others to allow of their own
emulation and advance; whereas the barbarian, in his own estimate, is
perfect already; and what is perfect cannot be improved. Hence he
cherishes in his heart a self-esteem of a very peculiar kind, and a
special contempt of others. He views foreigners, either as simply
unworthy of his attention, or as objects of his legitimate dominion.
Thus, too, he justifies his sloth, and places his ignorance of all
things human and divine on a sort of intellectual basis.

Robertson, in his history of America, enlarges on this peculiarity of
the savage. "The Tartar," he says, "accustomed to roam over extensive
plains, and to subsist on the produce of his herds, imprecates upon his
enemy, as the greatest of all curses, that he may be condemned to reside
in one place, and to be nourished with the top of a weed. The rude
Americans ... far from complaining of their own situation, or viewing
that of men in a more improved state with admiration or envy, regard
themselves as the standard of excellence, as beings the best entitled,
as well as the most perfectly qualified, to enjoy real happiness