SAVAGES AND CHILDREN. 569 



Savages may be likened to children, and the compari- 

 son is not only correct, but also highly instructive. Many 

 naturalists consider that the early condition of the individual 

 indicates that of the race, that the best test of the affinities 

 of a species are the stages through which it passes. So also 

 it is in the case of man ; the life of each individual is an 

 epitome of the history of the race, and the gradual develop- 

 ment of the child illustrates that of the species. Hence tire 

 importance of the similarity between savages and children. 

 Savages, like children, have no steadiness of purpose. Speak- 

 ing of the Dogrib Indians, we found, says Richardson,* " by 

 experience, that however high the reward they expected to 

 receive on reaching their destination, they could not be de- 

 pended on to carry letters. A slight difficulty, the prospect 

 of a banquet on venison, or a sudden impulse to visit some 

 friend, were sufficient to turn them aside for an indefinite 

 length of time." Even among the comparatively civilized 

 South Sea Islanders this childishness was very apparent. 

 "Their tears indeed,-)- like those of children, were always 

 ready to express any passion that was strongly excited, and 

 like those of children they also appear to be forgotten as soon 

 as shed." D'Urville also mentions that Tai-wanga, a New 

 Zealand chief, cried like a child because the sailors spoilt his 

 favourite cloak by powdering it with flour. J It is not, says 

 Cook, " indeed strange that the sorrows of these artless people 

 should be transient, any more than that their passions should 

 be suddenly and strongly expressed ; what they feel they 

 have never been taught either to disguise or suppress; and 

 having no habits of thinking which perpetually recall the past 

 and anticipate the future, they are affected by all the changes 

 of the passing hour, and reflect the colour of the time, how- 



* Arctic Expedition, vol. ii. p. 23. I D'Urville, vol. ii. p. 398. See 

 f Cook's First Voyage, p. 103. also Burton's Lake Regions of Cen- 

 tral Africa, p. 332. 



