THE PLAINS OF PATAGONIA 213 



me for a time above myself. And yet, comparing 

 myself with other men, I find that on ordinary 

 occasions my courage is rather below than above 

 the average. And probably this instinctive cour- 

 age, which flashes out so brightly on occasions, is 

 inherited by a very large majority of the male 

 children born into the world ; only in civilized life 

 the exact conjuncture of circumstances needed to 

 call it into activity rarely occurs. 



In hunting, again, instinctive impulses come 

 very much to the surface. Leech caricatured Gal- 

 lic ignorance of fox-hunting in England when he 

 made his French gentleman gallop over the 

 hounds and dash away to capture the fox him- 

 self ; but the sketch may be also taken as a comic 

 illustration of a feeling that exists in every one 

 of us. If any sportsman among my readers has 

 ever been confronted with some wild animal a 

 wild dog, a pig, or cat, let us say when he had 

 no firearm or other weapon to kill it in the usual 

 civilized way, and has nevertheless attacked it, 

 driven by a sudden uncontrollable impulse, with 

 a hunting knife, or anything that came to hand, 

 and has succeeded in slaying it, I would ask such 

 a one whether this victory did not give him a 

 greater satisfaction than all his other achieve- 

 ments in the field? After it, all legitimate sport 

 would seem illegitimate, and whole hecatombs of 

 hares and pheasants, and even large animals, 

 fallen before Ms gun, would only stir in him a 

 feeling of disgust and self-contempt. He would 



