They are slaves among the native
inhabitants of Canada, and are chiefly valued for the toils they endure,
and the domestic service they yield. [Footnote: Charlevoix.]
The burning ardours, and the torturing jealousies of the seraglio and the
haram, which have reigned so long in Asia and Africa, and which, in the
southern parts of Europe, have scarcely given way to the difference of
religion and civil establishments, are found, however, with an abatement of
heat in the climate, to be more easily changed in one latitude, into a
temporary passion which engrosses the mind, without enfeebling it, and
excites to romantic achievements: by a farther progress to the north, it is
changed into a spirit of gallantry, which employs the wit and the fancy
more than the heart; which prefers intrigue to enjoyment; and substitutes
affectation and vanity where sentiment and desire have failed. As it
departs from the sun, the same passion is farther composed into a habit of
domestic connection, or frozen into a state of insensibility, under which
the sexes at freedom scarcely choose to unite their society.
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