504 SANGUINARY INSTINCTS. 



From emulation to rivalry, from the chase to the campaign, there 

 is but one step. War, for the savage, is but a more dangerous and 

 a more glorious chase ; a chase more productive and more fertile in 

 pleasures than the ordinary chase. Therein his self-love, as well as 

 his fierce sanguinary instincts, can be amply gratified ; and he feels a 

 keener delight than in the pursuit of the lion or the tiger. He also 

 derives from it far greater advantages, realizes far more considerable 

 profits ; the likeness is moreover all the closer, since he looks upon 

 his vanquished enemy sometimes as a prey, sometimes as a slave or 

 a thing for sale or barter. He may either kill him and eat him, or 

 constrain him to labour for him ; or finally sell him for money, or 

 exchange him against other "goods and chattels." If he does not 

 cut him down on the battle-field, and it should not suit him to let 

 his captive live, he may enjoy the pleasure of varying and mul- 

 tiplying his tortures before he deals the death-blow. Among all 

 savage races no banquet is more eagerly enjoyed than the torture of 

 their prisoners. It is generally round the stake to which the 

 shuddering victims are confined, or their throbbing and bleeding 

 remains, just about to be devoured, that the conquerors execute 

 fantastic dances, and surrender themselves to noisy manifestations of 

 joy, making the air re-echo with their discordant songs and the not 

 less discordant sounds of their rude musical instruments ; then after 

 the hideous banquet accursed as that which Pelops offered to the 

 gods seated around the glowing embers, and in the midst of the 

 frightful fragments of the feast, they love to recall their achievements 

 in the battle and the chase, or beguile the time with some rude game 

 of chance. Gambling, like war and the chase, seems to be an innate 

 passion with savages ; and, sooth to say, it is a vice worthy of them 

 and of their brutalized nature. Rightly does the poet exclaim. 



" What meaner vice 



Crawls there than that which no affections urge, 

 And no delights refine ; which from the soul 

 Steals mounting impulses which might inspire 

 Its noblest ventures, for the arid quest 

 Of wealth 'mid ruin ; changes enterprise 



