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NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
the missionary, but who would kill any of their 
women on whom the white man should merely look 
to lust after her. . . . The term " savages," so 
glibly bestowed by writers on the Indian races, 
would be more correctly applied to those Christian 
nations who play at the game of war, and who, 
instead of deciding their differences on the principle 
of doing to others as you would they should do to 
you," kill, burn, and waste as many and as much as 
they can. 
. . . Yet the introduction of a pure and simple 
Christianity might much benefit the Indian ; and 
we must not too harshly judge him for transgressions 
aofainst our own moral code. The Indian's notion 
of " crime," for example, is not the same as ours. 
He feels the disgrace of being found out in a lie or 
a theft, but if he escapes detection he exults in his 
adroitness. He is naturally apathetic and dislikes 
exertion ; but he makes his wife work like a slave. 
On the Rio Negro I have seen the poor women 
grating mandiocca by moonlight until midnight ; and 
they must be stirring before daybreak to give their 
husband his morning drink ; while he, extended in 
his hammock, is warming his nether extremities 
near a fire which must not be allowed to go out. 
When I had seen this, I felt no pity for the Indian 
when the white man took him by force to row his 
boats and do other work for him. 
. . . On March 22 of this year a fearful earth- 
quake shook the whole of the Quitonian Andes. 
The damage done in Quito itself is estimated 
at four millions of dollars, and some adjacent 
villages are quite destroyed ; but as the shock 
came by day, only a few people were killed who 
