i82 Idle Days in Patagonia. 



perpetuate unfitness, and in the interest of suffering 

 individuals inflicts a lasting injury on the race. It 

 is a beautiful and sacred thing to minister to the 

 blind, and to lead them, but a horrible thing to 

 encoui'age them to marry and transmit the miserable 

 defective condition to their posterity. Yet this is 

 very common ; and not long ago a leader-writer in 

 one of the jDrincipal London journals spoke of this 

 very thing in terms of rapturous approval, and 

 looked forward to the growth of a totally blind 

 race of men among us, as though it were something 

 to be proud of — a triumph of our civilization ! 



Pelleschi, in his admirable book on the Chaco 

 Indians, says that malformations are never seen in 

 these savages, that physically they are all perfect 

 men ; and he remarks that in their exceedingly 

 hard struggle for existence in a thorny wilderness, 

 beset with perils, any bodily defect or ailment 

 would be fatal. And as the eye in their life is the 

 most important organ, it must be an eye without 

 flaw. In this circumstance only do savages differ 

 from us — namely, in the abscuce or rarity of de- 

 fective eyes among them ; and when those who, 

 like Dr. Brudenell Carter, believe in the decadence 

 of the eye in civilized man quote Humboldt's words 

 about the miraculous sight of South American 

 savages, they quote an error. It is not strange 

 that Humboldt should have fallen into it, for, after 

 all, he had only the means which we all possess of 

 finding out things — a limited sight and a fallible 

 mind. Like the savage, he had trained his faculties 



