Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 393, July 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
The savage, in his original state, is simply an animal, superior to
his own dog only in sharpness of intellect; but wholly inferior to
his dog in fidelity and affection. All savages are tyrannical--cruel
to their wives, if wives they can be called--and in general
cheating and plundering wherever they can. As to their bodily
organs, of course, they cannot be perverted where they cannot
reach temptation; but no savage comprehends moral restraint, and
he gets drunk whenever he has the opportunity, and robs wherever
he finds any thing to steal. On the other hand, civilisation
necessarily enfeebles no man, and what the gallant Colonel regards
as its "degradation of man by classes," produces quite the contrary
effect; for the humbler the class, generally the more vigorous--as
the peasant is a stronger man than the artisan, and the artisan
than the nobleman. Even the idea that savage limbs can do more
than civilised, is equally erroneous. A well clothed and well fed
Englishman, if well formed, and with some training, will outwork,
outrun, and outwrestle any savage from pole to pole. A ropedancer,
a tumbler, or a horserider, at any of our theatres, though bred
in the very heart of civilisation, or even in the hotbed of its
temptations, will perform feats of activity which would defy all the
muscles of a generation of savages. The truth is, that civilisation
improves the features, the form, and the powers of the human frame.
Men in society may be indolent, and throw away their advantages; but
society is the place for man. Rousseau, once made a noise by talking
nonsense on this subject; but Rousseau _knew_ that he was talking
nonsense. Whether his imitators are equally cognisant of their own
performances, is another question; but we come to better things.
This journey settled the disputed point of "horses or bullocks,
light carts, or heavy drays." The bullocks and the drays were a
perpetual annoyance; to feed and water the one, and to drag the
other, soon became the grand difficulty of the expedition. We find
the Colonel perpetually leaving them to follow, when any peculiar
object of exploration was in view. At length the whole "park" was
left to take its rest, under the second in command; and the Colonel,
with eight men, two native boys, fourteen horses, and two light
carts, with provisions for ten weeks, moved to the northward, to
trace where the division of the waters was to be found, and then
follow some of them down to the Gulf.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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