112 THE RESULT OF A BETTER SYSTEM 



ing and revolting character — robberies that drove 

 whole nations to despair — and the most painful and 

 irritating sense of general insecurity. 



" The next series of trials were conducted on a 

 different principle. The tribes which retained their 

 independence were visited by the messengers of peace. 

 Men unarmed, unattended, without any previous 

 agreement on which reliance for a moment's safety 

 could be placed, proceeded into the midst of those 

 formidable hordes, whose hands were red with blood, 

 and their hearts burning for revenge. This was an 

 extraordinary spectacle ; and when we learn that 

 they were received with kindness, obtained food from 

 those miserable beings whose strength was daily 

 consumed with hunger, and their lives often cut short 

 by famine — when we see them protected against all 

 violence by those proscribed and persecuted creatures 

 — listened to while accusing them boldly of the 

 crimes they had committed, and finally received into 

 the confidence of their lawless chiefs, and acting in 

 concert with them in endeavouring to restrain their 

 followers from outrage — the obscurities of the ques- 

 tion vanish from the mind like a cloud. Instead of 

 being compelled to search for unknown principles 

 of action, and to invent new motives for minds made 

 up of different elements from our own, we discover 

 that our previous knowledge of mankind, so far from 

 deserting or obstructing us in our intercourse, is a 

 safe and sufficient guide. The minds of these wild 



