ABOUT THE FUTURE OF PATAGONIA 297 



The greatest of British exports is, one might contend, 

 Britishers. 



The attitude of the young Britisher abroad towards the rest of 

 the world in general is at once a source of great national strength 

 and of serious national weakness. 



First, as we know, he is a poor linguist, who prefers to go on 

 speaking his own language, and, when not understood, attempting 

 to enforce comprehension by the very simple expedient of shouting 

 louder. The result of this uncompromising attitude, backed by a 

 good national financial status, is that as the mountain will not go to 

 Mahomet, Mahomet must needs come to the mountain, and the 

 foreign Mahomet does come, wrestling his way through difficulties 

 of pronunciation. By his attitude in this matter — an attitude 

 dictated partly by a too common lack of the linguistic faculty and 

 partly by a certain rooted conviction that a man who cannot speak 

 English is a man of " lesser breed " — the Britisher has to a certain 

 extent forced English upon a very unwilling world. 



But whether this question of the one-language system is a loss 

 or a gain to the country, it is very certain that there is another 

 idiosyncrasy of the Englishman abroad which is an undoubted loss. 

 Every country has its own ways and methods, not only peculiar 

 to its inhabitants but adapted to their special needs. And here 

 the brusque unadaptability of the Englishman becomes pitifully 

 apparent. 



He loses immensely by it. He will ride on his English saddle 

 because he has been used to ride on it at home ; he will wear his 

 pigskin leggings for precisely the same reason. 



You cannot teach him that he who walks in a noontide sun 

 in latitudes near the equator is sometimes apt to contract a 

 fever. Of course I refer chiefly to the " new chum," but we have 

 an unfortunate gif: of remaining new chums for an indefinite 

 period. 



Our young blood is very sure of himself, which is a first-rate 

 national trait, and one to which as a nation we, no doubt, owe 

 much. But it has its drawbacks. Thus, although he is physically 

 excellent beyond his fellows, his death-rate is usually heavier, 

 which in the nature of things it ought not to be. 



