550 DIFFERENT LINES OF CIVILIZATION. 



spear-casters, pottery, domestic animals, or a knowledge of 

 agriculture, we might perhaps have expected a priori that the 

 acquisition of them would have followed some regular succes- 

 sion. That this, however, was not the case is shown by the 

 annexed table, which will, I think, be found interesting. It 

 gives some idea of the progress made by various savage tribes 

 at the time when they were first visited by Europeans. 



Some of the differences exhibited in this table may indeed 

 be easily accounted for. The frozen soil and arctic climate 

 of the Esquimaux would not encourage, would not even per- 

 mit, any agriculture. So, again, the absence of hogs in New 

 Zealand, of dogs in the Friendly Isles, and of all mammalia 

 in Easter Island, is probably due to the fact that the original 

 colonists did not possess these animals, and that their isolated 

 position prevented them afterwards from obtaining any. More- 

 over, we must remember that as a general rule the lowest 

 savage can only use one or two weapons. He is limited to 

 those which he can carry about with him, and naturally pre- 

 fers those which are of most general utility.* We cannot, 

 however, in this manner account for all the facts. In Columbia, 

 Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, and elsewhere, agriculture 

 was unknown before the advent of Europeans. Easter Island, 

 on the contrary, contained large plantations of sweet pota- 

 toes, yams, plantains, sugar-canes, etc. Yet the Chinooks of 

 Columbia had bows and arrows, fish-hooks, and nets; the 

 Australians had throwing-sticks, boomerangs, fish-hooks, and 

 nets ; the Hottentots had bows and arrows, nets, fish-hooks, 

 pottery, and at last even a certain knowledge of iron ; all of 

 which seem to have been unknown to the Easter Islanders, 

 though they would have been very useful, and, excepting the 

 iron, might have been invented and used by them. 



If the case of Easter Island stood alone, the absence of bows 



Weapons of war depending are probably more liable to change 



very much on the caprice of chiefs, than those used in hunting. 



