WANT OF A LITERATURE. COS 



To squalid greediness, makes heaven-born hope 

 A shivering fever, and in vile collapse 

 Leaves the exhausted heart, without one fibre 

 Impelled by generous passion ? " * 



The " shivering fever " consumes the savage's very life-blood ; he 

 gives himself up to it with unrestrained frenzy, and stakes, upon a 

 throw of the dice, his weapons, his possessions, his women, and even 

 his liberty. 



Scarcely less violent is the passion which plunges him into 

 drunkenness. With the fermented juices of various plants he is 

 skilful in compounding intoxicating liquors, though he greatly prefers 

 to these raw preparations the subtle mixtures introduced by Euro- 

 peans. There is nothing which you cannot obtain from him for a 

 few bottles of rum, of whisky, or brandy. And it is to the shame of 

 our merchants that they do not scruple to stimulate, for their own 

 sordid benefit, this vile passion to the utmost, against which the 

 efforts of all our missionaries have proved almost powerless ; so that, 

 in truth, the commerce of the savage with civilized men, far from 

 contributing to raise the former out of their abject, slothful, and 

 degraded condition, has, on the contrary, 'proved for the majority of 

 them a new source of embrutization and depravity. 



Savages have no other literature than the traditions, myths, and 

 marvels to which I have already alluded. They have no written 

 language ; and here we are at once provided with a means of 

 distinguishing the wholly savage from the partly civilized races. The 

 reduction of speech to a definite system, the acknowledgment of 

 certain laws and principles as affecting the formation of a language, 

 is the first great step out of barbarism which a barbarous people 

 accomplishes. 



Their science is limited to some acquaintance with the properties 



of the plants which they make use of, either as food, medicine, or 



poison. Medicine, indeed, as practised by "medicine-men," priests, 



or "sorcerers," consists practically of superstitious formulas, whose 



* T. Noon Talfourd," Dramatic Works." 



32 a 



