582 GENERAL WRETCHEDNESS OF SAVAGES. 



victims."* Savages never know but what they may be 

 placing themselves in the power of these terrible enemies ;-f- 

 and it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of 

 unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and 

 embitters every pleasure. 



The mental sufferings which they thus undergo, the horrible 

 tortures which they sometimes inflict on themselves, and the 

 crimes which they are led to commit, are melancholy in the 

 extreme. It must not be supposed that in the preceding 

 chapter I have selected from various works all the passages 

 most unfavourable to savages, and that the picture I have 

 drawn of them is unfair. In reality, the very reverse is the case. 

 Their real condition is even worse and more abject than that 

 which I have endeavoured to depict. I have been careful to 

 quote only from trustworthy authorities, but there are many 

 things stated by them which I have not ventured to repeat ; 

 and there are other facts which the travellers themselves were 

 ashamed to publish. 



* Tylor, 1. c. p. 129 ; Turner's t See Brown, New Zealand and 

 Polynesia, pp. 18, 89, 424. its Aborigines, p. 80. 



