12 SKETCH OP THE BOOTHIANS, 



The selfishness of this race, as known to Sir Edward Parry, can- 

 not be more strongly marked than he has done it in his descrip- 

 tion of his intercourse with them. Itadmitsof no dispute : yet such 

 was not the character of the present tribe. I have already said 

 that they paid as much attention to the aged and destitute as 

 could have been done by any civilized people : and we had 

 opportunities of observing, that so far from seeking the exclusive 

 gratification of their own hunger or appetites, (the ever ready 

 and most marked test of animal selfishness,) they were always 

 ready to divide their provisions, even where they had not enough 

 for the next day, with those who were in want. 



The striking and most repulsive want of gratitude in those 

 who came under the cognizance of that observer, was certainly 

 not evinced by the present tribe. So far from this, our expe- 

 rience led us to assign them a character the very reverse : 

 though the virtue of gratitude, if it be practically esteemed a 

 virtue, as men may safely doubt, is not so very abounding or 

 .so much cultivated, even under civilization and the lights 

 of morals and religion, as to have led to any great censure 

 of these people had they been without it. If those against 

 whom the charge of ingratitude has been, and with unques- 

 tionable justice, brought, are what men ought not to be, 

 there is that to be recollected, which, though not an exculpation, 

 forms a solution of an imagined difficulty, which has possibly 

 been overlooked : in civilized society, it is acknowledged and 

 admitted that ingratitude is a vice: but it is a profitable or an 

 advantageous one, and, while practised as such, it becomes 



