290 Ldle Days in Patagonia. 
of our artificial life and all we have done torid our- 
selves of an inconvenient heritage, that we are 
capable of so-called heroic deeds; of cheerfully 
exposing ourselves to the greatest privations and 
hardships, suffering them stoically, and facing death 
without blenching, sacrificing our lives, as we say, 
in the cause of humanity, or geography, or some 
other branch of science. 
It is related that a late aged prime minister of 
England on one occasion stood for several hours at 
his sovereign’s side at a reception, in an oppressive 
atmosphere, and suffering excruciating pains from a 
gouty foot; yet making no sign and concealing his 
anguish under a smiling countenance. We have been 
told that this showed his good blood: that because 
he came of a good stock, and had the training and 
traditional feelings of a gentleman, he was able to 
suffer in that calm way. This pretty delusion 
quickly vanishes in a surgical hospital, or on a field 
covered with wounded men after a fight. But the 
savage always endures pain more stoically than the 
civilized man. Heis 
Self-balanced against contingencies, 
As the trees and animals are. 
However great the sufferings of the gouty premier 
may have been, they were less than those which 
any Indian youth in Guiana and Venezuela volun- 
tarily subjects himself to before he ventures to call 
himself a man, or to ask for a wife. Small in com- 
parison, yet he did not endure them smilingly 
