THE SERPENT'S STRANGENESS 163 



times strikes us very forcibly. One day I stood 

 watching a group of a dozen children playing in a 

 small open green space in London ; its openness to 

 the sky and the green, elastic turf under their feet 

 had suddenly made them mad with joy. Watching 

 them I could not help laughing when all at once 

 I remembered having once watched a group of 

 children of about the same size as these on a spot 

 of green turf in a distant region, playing the same 

 rude game in the same way, with the same shrill, 

 excited cries ; and these were children of un- 

 adulterated savages — the nomad Tehuelches of 

 Patagonia ! In some savage tribes the adults are 

 invariably of a gloomy, taciturn disposition — the 

 " buoyant child surviving in the man " would be 

 as astonishing a phenomenon to them as a fellow- 

 creature with the melodious throat of a Rubini, 

 or a pair of purple wings on his shoulders. The 

 children of these people sit silent and unsmiling 

 among their elders in the house, as if the burden 

 of eternal care had been inherited by them from 

 birth ; but every day the grave young monkeys 

 find a chance to steal off, and when they have got 

 to some secluded spot in the woods, out of earshot 

 of the village, a sudden transformation takes 

 place : they are out of school, and as merry and 

 shrill at their games and mock battles as any 

 rough set of urchins just released from their lessons 

 in our own land. 



Many pages might be filled with similar instances. 

 And when we consider what the law is, and that 



