260 
TRAVELS ON THE RIQ NEGRO. 
\Marcli, 
The children of small growth are naked, and 
The boys and men wear but a narrow cloth. 
How I delight to see those naked boys ! 
Their well-form’ d limbs, their bright, smooth, red-brown skin. 
And every motion full of grace and health ; 
And as they run, and race, and shout, and leap. 
Or swim and dive beneath the rapid stream. 
Or, all bareheaded in the noonday sun, 
Creep stealthily, with blowpipe or with bow. 
To shoot small birds or swiftly gliding fish, 
I pity English boys ; their active limbs 
Cramp’d and confined in tightly-fitting clothes ; 
Their toes distorted by the shoemaker. 
Their foreheads aching under heavy hats. 
And all their frame by luxury enervate. 
But how much more I pity English maids. 
Their waist, and chest, and bosom all confined 
By that vile torturing instrument called stays ! 
And thus these people pass their simple lives. 
They are a peaceful race ; few serious crimes 
Are known amongst them ; they nor rob nor murder. 
And all the complicated villanies 
Of man called civilized are here unknown. 
Yet think not I would place, as some would do' 
The civilized below the savage man ; 
Or wish that we could retrograde, and live 
As did our forefathers ere Caesar came. 
’Tis true the miseries, the wants and woes. 
The poverty, the crimes, the broken hearts. 
The intense mental agonies that lead 
Some men to self-destruction, some 
To end their days within a madhouse cell. 
The thousand curses that gold brings upon us. 
The long death-struggle for the means to live,— 
All these the savage knows and suffers not. 
But then the joys, the pleasures and delights. 
That the well-cultivated mind enjoys ; 
The appreciation of the beautiful 
In nature and in art ; the boundless range 
