( 543 ) 



CHAPTEE XV. 



MODERN SAVAGES concluded. 



IN reading almost any account of savages, it is impossible 

 not to admire the skill with which they use their 

 weapons and implements, their ingenuity in hunting and 

 fishing, and their close and accurate powers of observation. 

 Some savages even recognize individuals by their footsteps. 

 Thus Mr. Laing mentions* that one day while travelling near 

 Moreton Bay, in Australia, he pointed to a footstep, and asked 

 whose it was. The guide " glanced at it, without stopping his 

 horse, and at once answered, 'White fellow call him Tiger." 

 This turned out to be correct, which was the more remarkable 

 as the two men belonged to different tribes, and had not met 

 for two years. Among the Arabs, Burckhardt asserts-)- that 

 some men know every individual in the tribe by his footstep. 

 " Besides this, every Arab knows the printed footsteps of his 

 own camels, and of those belonoins; to his immediate nei^h- 



o o o 



bours. He knows by the depth or slightness of the impression 

 whether a camel was pasturing, and therefore not carrying 

 any load, or mounted by one person only, or heavily loaded/' 

 The North American Indian will send an arrow right through 

 a horse or even a buffalo. The African savage will kill the 

 elephant, and the Chinook fears not to attack even the whale. 

 Captain Grey tells us that he has often seen the Australians 

 kill a pigeon with a spear, at a distance of thirty paces..} 

 Speaking of the Chamisso Island Esquimaux, Beechey says 



* Aborigines of Australia, p. 24. J Grey, 1. c. vol. ii. p. 285. 



t Bedouins and Waliaby s. p. 374. 



