Wanika. 
95 
degeneracy ; but, on the other hand, there is no such 
barrier in the way of improvement. Is it not astonishing 
that ages upon ages of neglect, abuse, stagnation, and 
depravity should not have crushed ^/le man altogether 
out of these people ? Yet so it is, men cannot become 
brutes J do what they will'; they remain men in spite of 
every degrading influence, and however long such 
influences may continue to operate. The Wanika are 
a most demoralized and uncultivated people ; letters, 
science, art, philosophy, and religion are'altogether un- 
known to them, yet they possess all the elements of a 
mental and moral constitution similar to ourselves. In 
all that regards the affairs of every-day life they are 
as keen and sharp-witted as the more cultivated, and 
can hold their own against all comers. The precocity 
of children is very remarkable. They learn with 
wonderful ease and quickness, at least equal to, if not 
surpassing, that displayed by European children. It 
must be admitted, however, of the uneducated child, 
that as he grows up he becomes much duller, and that 
by the time he gains maturity his mind settles down 
into the normal condition of inertness and obtuseness. 
But we are disposed to think that this would be the 
case with all people, more or less. The mind requires 
to be educated while it possesses elasticity; in maturity 
it becomes hard, rigid, and unyielding. Let the minds 
of these people be expanded by knowledge in early 
life, and then the stolidity and incapacity for im- 
provement which now characterizes them in mature 
years will disappear. The women are mentally in- 
ferior to the men, but this is not surprising, considering 
the life they lead, and the treatment they receive from 
the other sex. 
