It is only fair to say that travellers themselves have not been so foolish as to uphold this view. At the same time, some of them have drawn hasty conclusions from the fact that they happened never to have heard members of a particular tribe indulge in laughter. A curious illustration of this reasoning from inadequate negative evidence is the dispute that took place, not so long ago, as to whether a people of Ceylon, known as Weddas (or Veddas), came into the category of the laughing animal. It was confidently asserted by a certain Mr. Hartshorne that they never laughed, even when they were experimented upon, and were confronted with the spectacle of others convulsed. Another visitor may help us to understand this by his remark that they vary “between a taciturn and almost morose mood when hungry, and a laughing reckless mood when not hungry”. Hartshorne must evidently have observed them in a hungry mood. Could it have been that, unlike Mary Kingsley, as some of us remember her playfully observing, he had something about him which kindled appetite?[140] {223} Other illustrations of a too confident basing of a conclusion on failure to observe may be found. Thus it is said by one traveller, Bates, that the Brazilian Indians are of a phlegmatic, apathetic temperament. A more recent visitor, Von den Steinen, gives us a different impression, remarking in one instance that “the silent Indian men and women continually chattered, and Eva’s laughter sounded forth right merrily” (lustig heraus).[141] These apparent discrepancies in the notes of different observers point, I suspect, to something besides such accidents as the particular mood in which the tribe is found. The ability to provoke laughter is not possessed by all: witness the failure of many meritorious attempts by adults to excite children’s merriment. Something of the easy good-nature which disarms timidity, of fraternal sympathy, and of the knack of making your audience believe you are like themselves, seems needed to draw forth all the mirthfulness of these children of nature.[142] We must always allow for this factor in the personal equation of the observer of savage ways. It is refreshing to find that missionaries have so often succeeded in getting at the lighter moods of the heathen. It speaks well for their genial humanity.