24 1 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
before, drifting in with the tide. It was then quite fresh, 
and if he had only been a Kharvee, or a Hurkuntur, or a 
Diwar, there would have been a feast that night, for he 
told me in a tone of sweet resignation that porpoise flesh 
was very good. But he was a Gabit, and Gabits do not 
eat porpoises. I asked why not, and he said that it was 
not the custom of his caste. And this was sufficient. 
After all, in a world of mystery, surrounded by a 
hundred things he does not understand, what safer course 
can a man take than to do as his fathers did ? So rain 
runs in the channels cut by the rain that fell before it and 
finds its way to the sea. You will say that no progress 
is possible if we follow this doctrine. But progress is not 
one of the gods of the Gabit, and he will not worship it. 
Who knows where it might lead him ? He desires safety 
and deliverance from the hazard and travail of thought. 
If you press him to tell his reason for not eating the 
porpoise, he will say, with a diffident grin, that his people 
consider it a cow of the sea. But this is philosophy, or 
theology if you will. Man, being a rational animal, must 
frame explanations of the things he does, or refuses to do, 
but these explanations come after his actions and have 
nothing to do with the motives of them. The reason why 
