464 SAVAGES AND CHILDREN. 



perfection of our nature, the increase of our knowledge, and 

 the enlargement of our views." 



We know the difficulty which children find in pronouncing 

 certain sounds : r and / for instance, they constantly confound. 

 This is the case also among the Sandwich Islanders and in the 

 Ladrones according to Freycinet ; * in Vanikoro ; f among 

 the Daminaras ; J and in the Tonga Islands. The frequent 

 repetition of a syllable is also noticeable in the languages 

 of savages, and especially in names. Mr. Darwin observed 

 that the Fuegians had great difficulty in comprehending an 

 alternative : and every one must have noticed the tendency 

 among savages to form words by reduplication. This also 

 is characteristic of childhood among civilised races. 



Again, some of the most brutal acts which have been 

 recorded against them are to be regarded less as instances of 

 deliberate cruelty, than of a childish thoughtlessness and im- 

 pulsiveness. A striking instance of this is recorded by Byron 

 in his narrative of the Loss of the Wager. A cacique of the 

 Chonos, who was nominally a Christian, had been out with 

 his wife to fish for sea- eggs, and having had little success, 

 returned in a bad humour. " A little boy of theirs, about 

 three years old, whom they appeared to be doatingly fond of, 

 watching for his father and mother's return, ran into the 

 surf to meet them : the father handed a basket of eggs to 

 the child, which being too heavy for him to carry, he let it 

 fall, upon which the father jumped out of the canoe, and 

 catching the boy up in his arms, dashed him with the 

 utmost violence against the stones. The poor little creature 

 lay motionless and bleeding, and in that condition was taken 

 up by the mother, but died soon after." || 



* Vol. ii., pp. 260, 519. f Vol. v., p. 218. 



J Gallon. Tropical South Africa, p. 181. 



Mariner's Tonga Islands, vol. i., p. 30. 



|| Byron's Loss of the Wager. Kerr's Voyages, vol. xvii., p. 374. 



