472 GENERAL INFERIORITY OF SAVAGES. 



ing his rubbish, and shell-trumpets, which could be heard 

 for miles, were blown to signal to the sorcerers to stop, and 

 wait for the presents which would be sent next morning. 

 Night after night, Mr. Turner used to hear the melancholy 

 too-tooing of the shells, entreating the wizards to stop 

 plaguing their victims." * Savages never know but what 

 they may be placing themselves in the power of these terrible 

 enemies, f The sufferings and privations which they thus 

 undergo, the horrible tortures which they sometimes inflict 

 on themselves, and the crimes which they are led to commit, 

 are melancholy in the extreme. It is not too much to say 

 that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick 

 cloud over savage life, and embitters every pleasure. 



Perhaps it will be thought that in the preceding chapter I 

 have selected from various works all the passages most un- 

 favorable to savages, and that the picture I have drawn of 

 them is unfair. In reality the very reverse is the case. 

 Their real condition is even worse and more abject than that 

 which I have endeavoured to depict. I have been careful to 

 quote only from trustworthy authorities, but there are many 

 things stated by them which I have not ventured to repeat ; 

 and there are other facts which even the travellers themselves 

 were ashamed to publish. 



* Tylor, I.e. p. 129; Turner's Polynesia, pp. 18, 89, 424. 

 t See Brown. New Zealand and its Aborigines, p. 80, 



