i82 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



ship's telescope. As he coasts along, he will see 

 the dusky figures steal like shades among the trees, 

 or hurry past in their bark canoes, or crouch in 

 fear upon the coral sand. He can watch them 

 gather the bread-fruit from the tree and pull the 

 cocoa-nut from the palm and root out the taro for 

 a meal which, all the year round and all the cen- 

 turies through, has never changed. In an hour or 

 two he can compass almost the whole round of 

 their simple life, and realize the gulf between him- 

 self and them in at least one way — in the utter 

 impossibility of framing to himself an image of the 

 mental world of men and women whose only world 

 is this. 



Let him pass on to the coast of Northern 

 Queensland, and, landing where fear of the white 

 man makes landing possible, penetrate the Australian 

 bush. Though the settlements of the European 

 have been there for a generation, he will find the 

 child of Nature still untouched, and neither by in- 

 tercourse nor imitation removed by one degree from 

 the lowest savage state. These aboriginal peoples 

 know neither house nor home. They neither sow 

 nor reap. Their weapons are those of Nature, a 

 pointed stick and a knotted club. They live like 

 wild things on roots and berries and birds and wal- 

 labies, and in the monotony of their life and the 



