Martyria; or, Andersonville Prison

by Augustus C. Hamlin

The Italian violets grow sweeter as we climb the Alpine slopes; the mignonette blooms with greater perfection and perfume as we approach the shores of the lowlands of the Mediterranean. We find the finest types of the human race among the uplands and the mountains; below, on the low coasts and river margins, where pestilences are generated, the physical and mental forces do not fully expand, and we find there neither liberty, virtue, nor science.

Dr. Rusdorf, in his work on the influence of European climate, regards the temperate zone as the brain-making region, and attempts to prove it by physiological deductions. The brain of the Caucasian, he says, determines the superiority over the other races, and it is the standard of the organism. This, he maintains, is produced by the richness of albumen in the blood, which is also dependent upon the oxygen of pure air. The extensive observations of the English Registrar-General show indisputably that the elevation of the soil exercises as decided an influence on the English race as it does on the native races of other climes and soils. They also show that the finest animals are raised in the healthiest districts. We see that certain heights above the plains are remarkably exempt from maladies which devastate nations inhabiting lower levels. Cholera, remittent fever, yellow fever, and plague, disappear at well-defined degrees of elevation.

At Vera Cruz, and along its latitude, the yellow fever vanishes at the height of three thousand feet above the Gulf shores.

The Prussian, in his “Medicinische Geographie,” appears to indicate with great degree of certainty the limits and altitudes of the three zones, into which he classifies the catarrhal, the dysenteric, and the scrofulous diseases. The scrofulous zone ceases at an altitude of two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and here, he says, there is no pulmonary consumption, scrofula, cancer, or typhus fever. “It is,” says Babinet, “the climate of each country which permits or arrests the development of the human race, which, joined with the industry of populations, imposes limits to the numerical force of each meteorological district, and which subsists four million of men in fertile Belgium, which is no more than a small fraction of the territory of France, whilst Siberia can with difficulty nourish a part of that number with an extent which is twenty-six times that of France.” “All over the world, physical circumstances,” exclaims Draper, “control the human race.”

XIX.

It is vain to assert that the atmospheres of the maritime or the low levels do not affect the physical and mental condition of men; and after all, Fontenelle was right when he maintained, in a curious paradox, that inspiration is a barometer that varies, which mounts to genius or descends to absurdity, according to the inconstancy of the weather; that there are unhealthy countries, full of mists, winds, tempests, that never produce clear understandings; and, on the contrary, there are lands with beautiful skies and fields filled with sunlight and roses which give out flashes of divine light.

Nearly all of the Grecian lyrists were born in the enchanting climates, and among the beautiful scenes of the Asiatic shore or the isles of the Ægean Sea. Most of the eminent men of Italy rose from similar inspirations, which Michael Angelo observed when speaking of Vasari in terms of admiration. Historians say that the sun was never softer, the heavens brighter, the roses more prolific, the winds more perfumed, than in the dawn of the eighteenth century, which produced that “wild garland of beautiful women who recalled by their graces, their genius, the courtesans of Greece,” which gave birth to those philosophers who gave a new impetus to liberty and religion.

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According to some writers, the unequal distribution of solar heat over the earth is the cause of marked differences in national character; others refer the distinctive effects to the quality of the air they breathe. Arbuthnot maintains that air not only fashions the body, but has also had great influence in forming language; that the close, serrated method of speaking of Northern nations was due to coldness of the climate, and hesitation of opening the mouth; whilst the sweet, sonorous phrases of temperate climes, like those of the Mediterranean, were due to the mildness of climate, where the vocal organs could be exposed without danger. “It is incontestable,” also writes Alfred Maury, in his “Earth and Man,” “that climate has upon the mode of government a considerable influence, because it exercises an immediate effect upon the character of individuals. In the warm countries, under an enervating atmosphere, where all inclines to effeminacy and idleness, the soul has not that energy and that force of will necessary to a people who wish to be free. Under a severe and cold climate, to the contrary, the character acquires more of energy, and the body more of activity. The passions are less violent, and leave to the reason a freer exercise. In the hot climes the instincts are impetuous, and they pass from an extreme of dejection to a state of exaltation which produces revolutions, insurrections, but which do not establish the independence. For, to the contrary, these violent crises introduce retaliation; and in the sanguinary conflicts, the power of an individual, although tyrannical, appears as a benefit, or is accepted as a necessity.”

XXI.