There is no such towering elevation of an individual above the mass amongst savages as amongst civilized Caucasians; but comparing the savage with only the lower and uneducated European, it would be hazardous to affirm that the black is inferior to the white. Under existing conditions the former can produce no Shakspeare or Newton, but the latter can vie with it in types of degradation. Nor must it be forgotten that the first great poet produced by Russia was the grandson of a negress of full blood.
Surveying man throughout the globe, examining his structure, comparing the skulls of races, laterally, vertically, and by measurement of the base, Dr. Pritchard concluded
Native: But the coach has its top upwards. When the world had got us
to the under side we should fall away.
Doctor: No; the flies don't fall from the ceiling.
Native: Well, how would the rivers run?
Doctor: Oh, all the same as when we are on the coach.
Native: Ah, doctor, that won't do. Perhaps the river running the same way that the world was turning might run all right, but the river running the other way—how could that manage, always the wrong way—uphill?
With great glee the triumphant casuist declared that the doctor was silenced.As a contrast, it may be mentioned that an English peasant, grumbling at the "wrong things" taught, said to the author that the only good he could see in a school was to keep children out of mischief. "Why, sir, they teaches 'em as the world's round. That's all very well for people as hasn't travelled, but for you and me, sir, as has come out to the colony in a ship, it won't do, for we knows well as it's flat."Which of these men, the Caucasian or the Australian, would any reader prefer for a companion? Always cheerful, often witty, keen for sport, and an accomplished huntsman, the Australian was a general favourite. On one occasion he travelled from the Murrumbidgee (his native place) to Adelaide with cattle. The small vessel which was to carry his employer and others to Sydney was wrecked on Kangaroo Island. When the party escaped to the shore the native was rudely treated by some who grudged him room in the boat. But soon the scene was changed. He became their hope, and the grudgers cringed to him. "I was almost like a governor. The same meu who wanted to keep me out of the boat came to me like sheep. Please, Jemmy, come and catch a kangaroo, or show us how. Oh, do! It made me laugh. They did not deserve it, but I had to help them, for I did not want them to starve. They were a bad lot."Sir Thomas Mitchell was accompanied in his official explorations by natives. He wrote:—"They have been described as the lowest in the scale of humanity, yet I found those who accompanied me superior in penetration and judgment to the white men composing my party." Such is the difference between personal experience and the evolution of a scheme in a study.
