ame to them for sowing or reaping as in the Golden Isles of the
ancient poets. At the same moment you see the younger plants in blade or
bud, the older in ear or fruit. All fruit-bearing plants, however, after
fruitage, either shed or change the colour of their leaves. But that
which interested me most in reckoning up their divisions of time was the
ascertainment of the average duration of life amongst them. I found on
minute inquiry that this very considerably exceeded the term allotted to
us on the upper earth. What seventy years are to us, one hundred
years are to them. Nor is this the only advantage they have over us in
longevity, for as few among us attain to the age of seventy, so, on the
contrary, few among them die before the age of one hundred; and they
enjoy a general degree of health and vigour which makes life itself a
blessing even to the last. Various causes contribute to this result:
the absence of all alcoholic stimulants; temperance in food; more
especially, perhaps, a serenity of mind undisturbed by anxious
occupations and eager passions. They are not tormented by our avarice
or our ambition; they appear perfectly indifferent even to the desire of
fame; they are capable of great affection, but their love shows
itself in a tender and cheerful complaisance, and, while forming their
happiness, seems rarely, if ever, to constitute their woe. As the Gy is
sure only to marry where she herself fixes her choice, and as here, not
less than above ground, it is the female on whom the happiness of home
depends; so the Gy, having chosen the mate she prefers to all others, is
lenient to his faults, consults his humours, and does her best to secure
his attachment. The death of a beloved one is of course with them, as
with us, a cause for sorrow; but not only is death with them so much
more rare before that age in which it becomes a release, but when it
does occur the survivor takes much more consolation than, I am afraid,
the generality of us do, in the certainty of reunion in another and yet
happier life.

All these causes, then, concur to their healthful and enjoyable
longevity, though, no doubt, much also must be owing to hereditary
organisation. According to their records, however, in those earlier
stages of their society when they lived in communities resembling ours,
agitated by fierce competition, their lives were considerably shorter,
and their maladies more numerous and grave. They themselves say that
the du