The general impression one derives from these accounts is that savage tribes are certainly not given over to a sullen despair, but on the contrary have a large and abundant mirth. Like children, they appear to express {224} their emotions with great freedom, and their laughter and other signs of good spirits are of the most energetic kind. Darwin tells us that his correspondents, missionaries and others, satisfied him on this point. Loud laughter accompanied by jumping about and clapping of the hands, and frequently carried to the point of a flooding of the eyes—these are conspicuous characteristics to be met with among the Australians and other savage tribes.[143] Other testimony supports Darwin. Sturt, for example, tells us that the natives of Central Australia are a merry people, and sit up laughing and talking all the night long.[144] The more recent observations of Lumholtz support the view that the natives are “very humorous”.[145] The Maoris (of New Zealand) are said by one traveller to be “remarkable for their natural gaiety: they are merry fellows: always laughing and joking, especially during the adventures of a journey”.[146] Of the Tasmanians we read: “There is not a little love of fun in the despised aborigine”.[147] Similarly, the South Sea Islanders are “more accustomed to jesting, mirth and humour than irritating and reproachful language”.[148] The natives of Tahiti, again, “jest upon each other with greater freedom than the Europeans”.[149] So, the Tongans have “a strong sense of the ludicrous” which they show in “the ordinary intercourse of life”.[150] Mr. Ling Roth, writing of the natives of Borneo, speaks of “the chaff and fun so dear to the heart of every Kanowit”.[151] {225} In other regions, too, and among other races we light on the same exuberance of mirth. This is true of the natives of Africa, when they are unspoiled by Europeans. The Kafirs were said, by one who knew them earlier, to be generally speaking a good-humoured people with a keen relish for amusement, and ready to join in a jest.[152] Visitors to the Gold Coast found that the natives dearly loved a joke, and had a most lively sense of the ludicrous.[153] Miss Kingsley, as is well known, found in the West Africans a people still given to mirth and jokes. In a letter to me she writes: “I think the West African, unadulterated, the most humorous form of human being there is, and this makes him exceedingly good company for me”. Nor is this joyous exuberance confined to the natives of warm climates. We find examples of it in the chilly North. One who visited the Indians of the Canadian Red River (the Chippewas) about forty years ago says, that they are “full of frolic and fond of relating anecdotes; they laugh immoderately at any trifling joke or absurdity and seem thoroughly to enjoy existence”.[154]