MALLERY. } SIGNS OF LOW TRIBES—OF FLUENT TALKERS. 279 
at the same time observing what articulate sounds were associated with 
those motions by the persons addressed, and thus vocabularies and lists 
of phrases were formed. 
LOW TRIBES OF MAN. 
Apart from the establishment ot a systematic language of signs under 
special circumstances which have occasioned its development, the gestures 
of the lower tribes of men may be generally classed under the emotional 
or instinetive division, which can be correlated with those of the lower 
animals. This may be illustrated by the modes adopted to show friend- 
ship in salutation, taking the place of our shaking hands. Some Pacific 
Islanders used to show their joy at meeting friends by sniffing at them, 
after the style of well-disposed dogs. The Fuegians pat and slap each 
other, and some Polynesians stroke their own faces with the hand or 
foot of the friend. The practice of rubbing or pressing noses is very 
common. It has been noticed in the Lapland Alps, often in Africa, and 
in Australia the tips of the noses are pressed a long time, accompanied 
with grunts of satisfaction. Patting and stroking different parts of the 
body are still more frequent, and prevailed among the North American 
Indians, though with the latter the most common expression. was hug- 
ging. In general, the civilities exchanged are similar to those of many 
animals. 
GESTURES AS AN OCCASIONAL RESOURCE. 
Persons of limited vocabulary, whether foreigners to the tongue em- 
ployed or native, but not accomplished in its use, even in the midst of 
a civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for words 
resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor meaning- 
less, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made by the ges- 
turer for the first time. An uneducated laborer, if good-natured enough 
to be really desirous of responding to a request for information, when 
he has exhausted his scanty stock of words will eke them out by orig- 
inal gestures. While fully admitting the advice to Coriolanus— 
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant 
More learned than the ears — 
it may be paraphrased to read that the hands of the ignorant are more 
learned than their tongues. A stammerer, too, works his arms and 
features as if determined to get his thoughts out, in a manner not only 
suggestive of the physical struggle, but of the use of gestures as a 
hereditary expedient. 
GESTURES OF FLUENT TALKERS. 
The sane is true of the most fluent talkers on occasions when the ex- 
act vocal formula desired does not at once suggest itself, or is unsatis- 
factory without assistance from the physical machinery not embraced 
in the oral apparatus. The command of a copious vocabulary common 
