The withering effects of the arid climate of Australia, is manifest
in the haggard walking skeletons of the aborigines, while the balmy
mildness and moist air of New Zealand exerts a directly opposite
effect, evinced in the fine stately forms, smooth polished skin, and
rounded beauty of the Malayan population, although they are evidently
a little out of climate--so far removed from the Tropics; much more
must this delicious climate have a propitious effect upon the Caucasian
British race, who are naturally suited to the climate. The rose
tinge of the cheek is a direct consequence of moist air of a fresh
stimulating coolness. We find in Van Diemen’s Land, which approaches
the New Zealand climate, that the rose of health is common, although
it seldom is so on the main of Australia, where the air is too dry
and parching for this species of flower. The British Fair may rely
that England’s Rose will not fail to blossom in New Zealand in all
its native richness, giving the unmatched tinge of flower-beauty and
freshness. The danger is, that it may even throw that of the mother
country into shade; although its sister, the vegetable rose, has never
been seen indigenous in the southern hemisphere, while it surrounds the
globe in the northern with a flowery chaplet.
There is but a very small portion of the world where the rose-bloom
is constantly domiciled on the cheek of beauty. In Asia and Africa it
scarcely appears but in gleams of transient suffusion. In America it
is almost equally rare, except in the New England States, the hills
of Virginia, and the maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Canada, and
Nova Scotia,--in the latter country the carmine blending to shades of
purple and blue, and not unfrequently a little out of place; while,
in the interior plains of Canada and the United States, the pallor is
universal. In Europe, it blossoms in the cooler, aquatic, and hilly
regions, wherever the air is fresh and moist,--in Britain, especially
the western side,--in Ireland, Holland, Prussia, Denmark, Norway.
Were the direful effects of a summer spent in the dry parts of the
south of Europe generally known, we should have less of _female_
emigration to these countries. The lily and rose-leaf cheek and cherry
lip of the British fair, whose purity and dewy freshness is nourished
by the moist coolness of their native air, when exposed to the Levanter
or Sirocco of Italy and Spain, or even to the dry hot air of the more
arid parts of France, soon shrivel to mummy and wrinkled parchment. The
seclusion of beauty in Mahomedan countries, and the Mantilla of Spain,
is less from jealousy of man than of the arid Eurus.
Female beauty, which, under hot dry atmosphere, withers like the
rock-rose “ere the noon,” in tropical countries often before the age of
twenty, and in the warm parched portion of the temperate zones, before
thirty, may be expected in New Zealand, provided warm fire apartments
(very little needed in that climate) are not much in use, to last till
nearly double that age.
Much depends upon regular and natural habits of life,--exposure to
the stimulus of the sun’s light, and especially to the fresh moist
air of the morning. It is customary for girls to go out agathering
May-dew, to form a rose-cosmetic,--and the roses certainly appear. Airy
sitting and sleeping apartments are essential, and especially to guard
against exposure to dry fire heat, and, above all, against the modern
abominations of heated air and gas-burners. In some parts of the north
of Europe, where the climate is severe in winter, the rooms are heated
by stoves, which, in order to prevent dust, open only to the lobby or
passages, and consequently afford no ventilation to the rooms, but give
out a close suffocating heat. The women are confined to these rooms all
the year, excepting during the short warm summer, and being thus always
exposed to vitiated air and high temperature, are nearly of as short
duration as within the tropics; while the men, more healthy and lasting
from greater exposure out of doors and cooler atmosphere, say they
require two sets of wives. In the mild climate of New Zealand, where
the houses are scarcely needed but to guard off showers, the beau-sex,
passing most of their time in the open air, and the remainder in well
ventilated apartments, will not have this contingency much to fear. _In
other respects_, from its soft moist climate, New Zealand, like Sicily,
may be expected to be especially propitious to women.--The prospects
now before them must cause the bright blood to mantle deeper on the
cheek of the British Fair.