172 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



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 difference 

 is so great that ours is a dim decaying sense com- 

 pared with their brilliant faculty, and that only 

 when we survey the prospect through powerful 

 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, on account 

 of their simple natural life in the desert, which is 

 always green and restful to the eye, or supposed to 

 be so; and because they have no gas nor even 

 candlelight to irritate the visual nerve, and do 

 themselves no injury by poring over miserable 

 books. 



Possibly, then, the beginning of the error was in 

 this preconceived notion, that greenness and the 

 absence of artificial light, with other conditions of 

 a primitive life, keep the sight from deteriorating. 

 The eye's adaptiveness did not get sufficient credit. 

 We know how the muscles may be developed by 

 training, that the blacksmith and prizefighter have 



