162 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
-any more than upon the red deer that roam in the 
forest behind his camp. The negroes have their fetich, 
every nation its idols; the gipsy alone has none—not 
even a superstitious observance ; they have no idolatry 
of the Past, neither have they the exalted thought of the 
Present. It is very strange that it should be so at this 
the height of our civilisation, and you might go many 
thousand miles and search’ from Africa to, Australia 
before you would find another people without a Deity. 
That can only be seen under an English sky, under 
‘English oaks and beeches, 
Are they the oldest race on earth? and have they 
worn out all the gods? Have they worn out all the 
hopes and fears of the human heart in tens of thousands 
of years, and do they merely live, acquiescent to fate? 
For some have thought to trace in the older races an 
apathy as with the Chinese, a religion of moral maxims 
and some few joss-house superstitions, which they them- 
selves full well know to be nought, worshipping their 
ancestors, but with no vital living force, like that which 
drove Mohammed’s bands to zealous fury, like that 
which sent our own Puritans over the: sea in the 
Mayflower. No living faith. So old, so very, very old, 
older than the Chinese, older than the Copts of Egypt, 
older than the Aztecs; back to those dim Sanskrit times 
that scem like the clouds on the far horizon of human 
expcrience, where space and chaos begin to take shape, 
though but of vapour. So old, they went through 
civilisation ten thousand years since; they have worn it 
all out, even hope in the future; they merely live 
acquiescent to fate, like the red deer. The crescent 
moon, the evening star, the clatter of the fern-owl, the 
red embers of the wood fire, the pungent smoke blown 
round about by the occasional puffs of wind, the 
shadowy trees, the sound of the horses cropping the 
