“Because I have lived with them. It is a fallacy to suppose that the savage has a health superior to that of the civilized man,--if the civilized man be but temperate; and even if not, he has the stamina that can resist for years the effect of excesses which would destroy the savage in a month. As to the savage’s fine perceptions of sense, such do not come from exquisite equilibrium of system, but are hereditary attributes transmitted from race to race, and strengthened by training from infancy. But is a pointer stronger and healthier than a mastiff, because the pointer through long descent and early teaching creeps stealthily to his game and stands to it motionless? I will talk of this later; now I suffer! Pain, pain! Has life any ill but pain?” It so happened that I had about me some roots of the white lily, which I meant, before returning home, to leave with a patient suffering from one of those acute local inflammations, in which that simple remedy often affords great relief. I cut up one of these roots, and bound the cooling leaves to the wounded hand with my handkerchief. “There,” said I. “Fortunately if you feel pain more sensibly than others, you will recover from it more quickly.” And in a few minutes my companion felt perfectly relieved, and poured out his gratitude with an extravagance of expression and a beaming delight of countenance which positively touched me. “I almost feel,” said I, “as I do when I have stilled an infant’s wailing, and restored it smiling to its mother’s breast.” “You have done so. I am an infant, and Nature is my mother. Oh, to be restored to the full joy of life, the scent of wild flowers, the song of birds, and this air--summer air--summer air!” I know not why it was, but at that moment, looking at him and hearing him, I rejoiced that Lilian was not at L----. “But I came out to bathe. Can we not bathe in that stream?” “No. You would derange the bandage round your hand; and for all bodily ills, from the least to the gravest, there is nothing like leaving Nature at rest the moment we have hit on the means which assist her own efforts at cure.” “I obey, then; but I so love the water.” “You swim, of course?” “Ask the fish if it swim. Ask the fish if it can escape me! I delight to dive down--down; to plunge after the startled trout, as an otter does; and then to get amongst those cool, fragrant reeds and bulrushes, or that forest of emerald weed which one sometimes finds waving under clear rivers. Man! man! could you live but an hour of my life you would know how horrible a thing it is to die!” “Yet the dying do not think so; they pass away calm and smiling, as you will one day.” “I--I! die one day--die!” and he sank on the grass, and buried his face amongst the herbage, sobbing aloud.