226 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



more ancient nobility, the qualities lie had in com- 

 mon with the wild man of childish intellect, an 

 old Viking, a fighting Colonel Burnaby, a Captain 

 Webb who madly flings his life away, a vulgar 

 Welsh prizefighter who enters a den full of growl- 

 ing lions, and drives them before him like fright- 

 ened sheep. It is due to this instinctive savage 

 spirit in us, in spite of our artificial life and all 

 we have done to rid ourselves of an inconvenient 

 heritage, that we are capable of so-called heroic 

 deeds; of cheerfully exposing ourselves to the 

 greatest privations and hardships, suffering them 

 stoically, and facing death without blenching, sac- 

 rificing our lives, as we say, in the cause of hu- 

 manity, or geography, or some other branch of 

 science. 



It is related that a late aged prime minister of 

 England on one occasion stood for several hours 

 at his sovereign's side at a reception, in an op- 

 pressive atmosphere, and suffering excruciating 

 pains from a gouty foot ; yet making no sign and 

 concealing his anguish under a smiling counte- 

 nance. We have been told that this showed his 

 good blood : that because he came of a good stock, 

 and had the training and traditional feelings of 

 a gentleman, he was able to suffer in that calm 

 way. This pretty delusion quickly vanishes in a 

 surgical hospital, or on a field covered with 

 wounded men after a fight. But the savage always 

 endures pain more stoically than the civilized 

 man. He is 



