The simplest form of this merriment, serving, as in the case of the child, as a bridge from joyous expansion under a new sensuous excitement to an appreciation of the odd, is the common laughter of savages at what is strikingly new to them, and at the same time takes their fancy. For example, the natives of Borneo were very much amused at a piano, and when they saw the dampers of the keys jumping up and down they “fairly laughed aloud”.[180] In like manner the Indians of Hudson Bay took a compass for a toy and laughed at it, refusing to accept the owner’s account of its use.[181] These are pretty clear examples of a mirthful delight at something which is new, devoid of import, and appealing to the play-appetite. The later stages of the laughter at the lively little compass-toy were, perhaps, more expressive of a dim sense of the absurdity of the suggestion that a dear wee play-thing could do such marvels. This gleeful greeting of what is at once new and exhilarating to sense answers in the case of these simple people to what in ourselves is joyous admiration. Thus, we read of certain African ladies, wives of a king, who expressed their delight at European works of art by repeated loud bursts of laughter.[182] Our own children show us now and again how the new, when it not only captures the sense by its novelty, {237} but holds it by its charm, may evoke this purely mirthful greeting, as free from the stiff attitude of curiosity as it is from fearsomeness.[183] It is a good step from this childish abandonment to the fun of a new toy-like thing to the recognition of something as foreign and opposed to the tribal custom. In these simple communities the unwritten laws of custom play a most important part. Violations of them on the part of any tribesman are apt to be dealt with seriously. This at once tends to limit the range of savage laughter; the pressure of custom is too tyrannical to allow of a full display of the odd and irregular in human behaviour. These elements of the amusing have accordingly to be supplied from without; and they are supplied in good measure, partly by other neighbouring tribes whose manners are observable, and to a still larger extent by the Europeans who visit them with a virtuous intention to reform and civilise.