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HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. 
being cheerful or depressing. Nor has it yet been determined how far 
emotions are differently expressed by different races, so that it is worth 
while to notice particularly if their smiling, laughing, frowning, weeping, 
blushing, &c., differ perceptibly from ours. The acuteness of the senses 
of sight, hearing, and smell, among wild peoples is often remarkable, but 
this subject is one on which many accounts have been given which 
require sifting. The skill of savages in path-finding and tracking 
depends in great measure on this being one of their most necessary arts 
of life, to which they are trained from childhood, as, in an inferior degree, 
gipsies are with us. The native hunter or guide’s methods of following 
the track of an animal, or finding his own way home by slight signs, such 
as bent twigs, and keeping general direction through the forest by the sky 
and the sheltered sides of the trees, are very interesting, though when 
learnt they lose much of their marvellous appearance. The testing of the 
mental powers of various races is an interesting research, for which good 
opportunities now and then occur. It is established that some races are 
inferior to others in volume and complexity of brain, Australians and 
Africans being in this respect below Europeans, and the question is to 
determine what differences of mind may correspond. Setting aside the 
contemptuous notions of uneducated Europeans as to the minds of “ black- 
fellows ” or “ niggers,” what is required is, to compare the capacity of two 
races under similar circumstances. This is made difficult by the fact 
of different training. For instance, it would not be fair to compare the 
European sportsman’s skill in woodcraft and hunting with that of the 
native hunter, who has done nothing else since childhood; while, on 
the other hand, the European, who has always lived among civilised 
people, owes to his education so much of his superior reasoning powers, 
that it is mostly impossible to get his mind into comparison with a 
savage’s. One of the best tests is the progress made by native and 
European children in colonial or missionary schools, as to which it is 
commonly stated that children of African or American tribes learn as fast 
as or faster than European children up to about twelve, but then fall 
behind. Even here it is evident that other causes besides mental power 
may be at work, among them the discouragement of the native children 
when they become aware of their social inferiority. The subject is one 
of great importance^ both scientifically and ^s bearing on practical 
government. 
