348 THE OBUISE OF THE ' CUBACJOA: 



Australian, brutishly incapable of civilised development 

 I had sojourned among the Nortli American Indians, living 

 in sullen hatred of that powerful civilisation which, in its 

 origin, liad expelled them from the soil it now occupies, 

 and on the ever-encroaching confines of which they 

 moodily roam ; doomed apparently to vanish out of exist- 

 ence with the features of their primitive rudeness uneffaced. 

 But what in this excursion was new and engaging to me, 

 was the spectacle of these island communities, exhibiting 

 incontestable evidence of their power of spontaneous de- 

 velopment, made manifest in their social organisation, their 

 creditable agricultural industry and skill, their progress in 

 certain industrial arts, their peculiar ceremonies of public 

 consultation, the decorum, and even refinement, of their 

 manners, and above all, in their capacity for absorbing the 

 instruction and influence of a more advanced civilisation. 

 Wliat I could not but lament was that I could only glance 

 at what I should have liked to have examined, record rapid 

 impressions instead of reporting careful experience, and 

 depend on statements and descriptions which require to be 

 accurately tested before we can accept them as verified. In 

 Sir John Lubbock's very interesting work on ' The Origin of 

 Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man,' nothing is 

 more remarkable than the confused and contradictory 

 character of the judgments that are passed on uncivilised 

 commvuiities, and how constantly the statements he makes 

 use of to support a conclusion are positively contradicted 

 by other statements, which with exemplary fairness he 



