SUFFERINGS OF SAVAGES. 593 



the inhabitants of Patagonia, south of 40, and ex- 



*-* 



elusive of Chiloe and Tierra del Fuego, are estimated by 

 Admiral Fitzroy at less than 4000, and the number of acres 

 is 176,640,000, giving more than 44,000 acres, or 68 square 

 miles, for each person. A writer in the " Voice of Pity," how- 

 ever, thinks that their numbers may perhaps amount to 14,000 

 or 15,00-0.* It would be difficult to form any census of the 

 aborigines in Australia : Mr. Oldfield estimates that there is 

 one native to every fifty square miles ;-f and it is at least 

 evident that, since the introduction of civilization, the total 

 population of that continent has greatly increased. 



Indeed, population as a general rule increases with civiliza- 

 tion. Paraguay, with 100,000 square miles, has from 300,000 

 to 500,000 inhabitants, or about four to a square mile. The 

 uncivilized parts of Mexico contained 374,000 inhabitants in 

 675,000 square miles; while Mexico proper, with 833,600 

 square miles, had 6,691,000 inhabitants. Naples had more 

 than 183 inhabitants to each square mile, Yenetia more than 

 200, Lombardy 280, England 280, Belgium as many as 320. 



Finally, we cannot but observe that, under civilization, the 

 means of subsistence have increased even more rapidly than 

 the population. Far from suffering for want of food, the more 

 densely peopled countries are exactly those in which it is, 

 not only absolutely, but even relatively, most abundant. It 

 is said that any one who makes two blades of grass grow 

 where one grew before, is a benefactor to the human race ; 

 what, then, shall we say of that which enables a thousand 

 men to live in plenty where one savage could scarcely find a 

 scanty and precarious subsistence ? 



There are, indeed, many who doubt whether happiness is 

 increased by civilization, and who talk of the free and noble 

 savage. But the true savage is neither free nor noble ; he is 



* 1. c. vol. ii. p. 93. f Trans. Ethn. Soc,, New Ser. vol. iii. p. 220. 



2Q 



