xviii INTRODUCTION 



are plundered, insulted, phlebotomised under our 

 own vine and fig-tree. We might make head 

 against the foe if we laid to heart the lesson our 

 national history in India teaches— namely, that 

 the way to fight uncivilised enemies is to encourage 

 them to cut one another's throats, and then step 

 in and inherit the spoil. But we murder our friends, 

 exterminate our allies, and then groan under the 

 oppression of the enemy. I might illustrate this 

 by the case of the meek and long-suffering musk-rat, 

 by spiders or ants, but these must wait another 

 day." 



Again he^says, " The ' poor dumb animals ' can 

 give each otHer a bit of their minds like their betters, 

 and to me their fierce and tender little passions, 

 their loves and hates, their envies and jealousies, 

 and their small vanities beget a sense of fellow- 

 feeling which makes their presence society. The 

 touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin 

 is infirmity. A man without a weakness is insup- 

 portable company, and so is a man who does not 

 feel the heat. There is a large grey ring-dove that 

 sits in the blazing sun all through the hottest 

 hours of the day, and says coo-coo, coo, coo-coo, coo 

 until the melancholy sweet monotony of that sound 

 is as thoroughly mixed up in my brain with no 

 in the shade as physic in my infantile memories 

 with the peppermint lozenges which used to " put 

 away the taste." But as for these creatures, which 

 confess the heat and come into the house and gasp, 



