116 
HINTS TO TRAVELLERS. 
finger, foot, pace, are used, or whether standard measures and weights 
have come in. If so, these should be estimated according to our standards 
with as much accuracy as possible, as it may thus become possible to 
ascertain their history. In connection with this comes the question of 
money, as to whether commerce is still in the rudimentary stage of 
exchanging gifts, or has passed into regular barter, or risen to regular 
trade, with some sort of money to represent value, even if the circulating 
medium be only cowries, or bits of iron, or cakes of salt, all which are 
current money to this day in parts of Africa. Outside the present higher 
civilisation, more or less primitive ideas of astronomy and geography will 
be found to prevail. Among tribes like the American Indians the obvious 
view suggested by the senses still prevails, that the earth is a flat round 
disc (or sometimes square, with four quarters or winds) overarched by a 
solid dome or firmament, on which the sun and moon travel—in inland 
countries going in and out at holes or doors on the horizon, or, if the sea 
bounds the view, rising from and plunging into its waves at sunrise and 
sunset. These early notions are to us very instructive, as they enable us 
to realise the conceptions of the universe which have come down to us 
in the ancient books of the world, but which scientific education has up¬ 
rooted from our own minds. With these cosmic ideas are found among 
the lowest races the two natural periods of time, namely, the lunar month 
and the solar year, determined by recurring winters, summers, or rainy 
seasons. Such tribes divide the day roughly by the sun’s height in the 
sky, but among peoples civilised enough to have time-measures and the 
sun-dial, there is a tolerably accurate knowledge of the sun’s place at 
the longest and shortest days, and, indeed, throughout the year. The 
astronomy of such countries as India has been of course described by 
professional astronomers; but among ruder nations there is still a great 
deal unrecorded—for instance, as to the constellations into which they 
map out the heavens. This likening stars and star-groups to animals and 
other objects is almost universal among mankind. Savages like the Aus¬ 
tralians still make fanciful stories about them, as that Castor and Pollux 
are two native hunters, who pursue the kangaroo (Capella) and kill him 
at the beginning of the hot season. Such stories enable us to understand 
the myths of the Classical Dictionary, while modern astronomers keep up 
the old constellations as a convenient mode of mapping out the sky. As 
to maps of the earth, even low tribes have some notion of their principle, 
