SIGHT IN SAVAGES 165 



in their profession, see faces more sharply than 

 most people, and remember them as distinctly as 

 others remember the faces of a very limited num- 

 ber of individuals of those they love or fear or 

 constantly associate with. Sailors see atmos- 

 pheric changes which are not apparent to others ; 

 and, in like manner, the physician detects the signs 

 of malady in faces which to the uninstructed vision 

 seem healthy enough. And so on through the 

 whole range of professions and pursuits which 

 men have; each person inhabits a little world of 

 his own, as it were, which to others is only part 

 of the distant general blueness obscuring all 

 things, but in which, to him, every object stands 

 out with wonderful clearness, and plainly tells its 

 story. 



All this may sound very trite, very trivial, and 

 matter of common knowledge so common as to 

 be known to every schoolboy, and to the boy that 

 goeth not to school; yet it is because this simple 

 familiar fact has been ignored, or has not always 

 been borne in mind by our masters, that they 

 have taught us an error, namely, that savages are 

 our superiors in visual power, and that the differ- 

 ence is so great that ours is a dim decaying sense 

 compared with their brilliant faculty, and that 

 only when we survey the prospect through power- 

 ful field-glasses do we rise to their level, and see 

 the world as they see it. The truth is that the 

 savage sight is no better than ours, although it 

 might seem natural enough to think the contrary, 



