176 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



ward to the growth of a totally blind race of men 

 among us, as though it were something to be proud 

 of a triumph of our civilization! 



Pelleschi, in his admirable book on the Chaco 

 Indians, says that malformations are never seen 

 in these savages, that physically they are all per- 

 fect men ; and he remarks that in their exceedingly 

 hard struggle for existence in a thorny wilderness, 

 beset with perils, any bodily defect or ailment 

 would be fatal. And as the eye in their life is 

 the most important organ, it must be an eye with- 

 out flaw. In this circumstance only do savages 

 differ from us namely, in the absence or rarity 

 of defective eyes among them; and when those 

 who, like Dr. Brudenell Carter, believe in the de- 

 cadence of the eye in civilized man quote Hum- 

 boldt's words about the miraculous sight of South 

 American savages, they quote an error. It is 

 not strange that Humboldt should have fallen into 

 it, for, after all, he had only the means which we 

 all possess of finding out things a limited sight 

 and a fallible mind. Like the savage, he had 

 trained his faculties to observe and infer, and his 

 inferences, like those of the savage, were some- 

 times wrong. 



The savage sight is no better than ours for the 

 simple reason that a better is not required. Na- 

 ture has given to him, as to all her creatures, only 

 what was necessary, and nothing for ostentation. 

 Standing on the ground, his horizon is a limited 

 one ; and the animals he preys on, if often sharper- 



