INSANITY. 179 



shivering and with their teeth chattering, were endeavouring to warm 

 themselves around the fires, I recalled to my mind an incident which 

 Mr. Darwin relates in his " Journal of the Beagle " (p. 220), which 

 although analogous, illustrates the converse of these conditions. " A 

 small family of Fuegians " — he writes — " soon joined our party 

 round a blazing fire. We were well clothed, and thoucjh sittinof close 

 to the fire were far from too warm ; yet these naked savages, though 

 further ofi", were observed, to our great surprise, to be streaming 

 with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting." 



Instances of mental weakness or of insanity amongst the natives 

 of these islands rarely came under my notice. However, more than 

 one of the chiefs whom we met had a half-witted individual on his 

 stafi", who made himself generally useful to his master. The chiefs 

 fool, as we called him, was frequently my guide in the island of 

 •Santa Anna. He was the general butt of the village ; and I was 

 told the girls would sometimes seize hold of him and roll him about 

 in the sand. Insanity would appear to be of uncommon occurrence 

 amongst these islanders ; but I suspect that such individuals are 

 not permitted to live. Whilst the " Lark " was engaged in the sur- 

 vey of Faro Island in Bougainville Straits, I learned that there was 

 a madman, who was partially dumb, living in the bush in the in- 

 terior of the island. Having murdered his wife about five months 

 before our visit, he had taken to the forest where he led a solitary 

 life at enmity with his fellow-islanders, who would have killed him 

 as they told me, if they found him. He frequently used to steal 

 from the plantations ; and during our stay in the island he was ob- 

 served by a woman near one of the yam patches. The chief's son 

 came up to me one afternoon, after I had returned to the coast from 

 an ascent of one of the principal summits, to advise me to shoot this 

 unfortunate being if ever I saw him ; and he added that if this mad- 

 man should see me, unobserved, he would either run away or take 

 his opportunity of killing me. However, I made several excursions 

 into the interior afterwards ; but I never fell in with him. 



