THE PLAINS OF PATAGONIA 219 



permits. Leigh Hunt wrote an amusing paper 

 on the pleasures of going to bed, when the legs, 

 long separated by unnatural clothing, delightedly 

 rub against and renew their acquaintance with one 

 another. Every one knows the feeling. If it were 

 convenient, and custom not so tyrannical, many 

 of us would be glad to follow Benjamin Frank- 

 lin's example, and rise not to dress, but to settle 

 comfortably down to our morning's work, with 

 nothing on. When, for the first time, in some re- 

 gion where nothing but a fig-leaf has ' ' entered the, 

 soul," we see men and women going about naked 

 and unashamed, we experience a slight shock ; but 

 it has more pleasure than pain in it, although we 

 are reluctant to admit the pleasure, probably be- 

 cause we mistake the nature of the feeling. If, 

 after seeing them for a few days in their native 

 simplicity, our new friends appear before us 1 

 clothed, we are shocked again, and this time dis- 

 agreeably so ; it is like seeing those who were free 

 and joyous yesterday now appear with fettered 

 feet and sullen downcast faces. 



To leave this question; what has truly entered 

 our soul and become psychical is our environment 

 that wild nature in which and to which we were 

 born at an inconceivably remote period, and which 

 made us what we are. It is true that we are emi- 

 nently adaptive, that we have created, and exist 

 in some sort of harmony with new conditions, 

 widely different from those to which we were 

 originally adapted; but the old harmony was in- 



