PRIMITIVE MAN 51 



alert as the sharpest-witted and as cunning as the 

 most crafty, and to have physical fitness and endur- 

 ance to stand the strain of incessant rivalry. This 

 is what these jungle people have. Their alertness, 

 their capacity to glide through the forest almost as 

 stealthily as an animal, their keenness of sight, their 

 acute sense of hearing, their knowledge of jungle 

 lore and of the habits of animals, and their ability to 

 stand long and hard physical strain, are the envy of 

 us civilised men when we find ourselves among 

 them. Particularly is this shown when tracking. 

 They will note the slightest indication of the pas- 

 sage of the animal they are after — the faintest foot- 

 print, a stone overturned and showing the moisture 

 on its under surface, a broken twig, a bitten leaf, 

 the bark rubbed — and they will be able to judge 

 from the exact appearance of these signs how long 

 it is since the animal made them. They wiU, too, 

 detect sounds which we civilised men would cer- 

 tainly never hear, and from a note of alarm in these 

 sounds, or from excitement among birds, infer the 

 presence of a dangerous animal. 



When seen outside the forests these jungle men 

 look wild and unkempt, but seen in their natural 

 surroundings and compared there with the white 

 man, they have a Beauty which is wanting in the 

 white man. In these surroundings they have a 

 dignity and composure and assurance which the 

 European lacks. They are on their own ground, 

 and there they are beautiful. 



And these primitive men are worthy of being 

 painted by the very greatest of painters, and of 

 having their praises sung by the very first of poets. 



