SOCIETY OP THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 17 



These are but a few glimpses at a subject of which only a small 

 part has been dealt with. Beneath the surface of native life there 

 lies a world of thought and feeling and speculation that has only been 

 partially explored. Professor Henry Drummond used to say he 

 would give all he possessed to " get inside a native for half an hour " 

 just to see the world through the native's eyes. For three and twenty 

 years I have been trying to get at the heart of the native mind, and 

 I feel as if I were as far away from it as ever. 



But the whole subject is full of intense and living interest, and if 

 the lot of any of the members of this Society should in their after career 

 be cast among such people, they will find no subject more worthy of 

 their study than the habits of native life and the working of the 

 native mind. The students nowadays are to be congratulated on 

 having the opportunities which this Society affords of becoming 

 acquainted with such questions as are discussed here. They will 

 learn what to look for and what to observe in any future investigations 

 they may make. At every step they will find something new, and 

 each fresh discovery adds to the sum of our knowledge and under- 

 standing of that most entrancing of all subjects of study our 

 common humanity. 



