So the scientific men, the missionary, the cinema people and many others bring home impressions which would amuse the savage. {96} Our people are so badly informed that they suppose the savage to be dirty, ferocious, immoral and uncouth as the Sydney larrakin, the cockney rough, the New York tough and other poor degenerates of our race. It is true that the Fuegans were dirty, but we should not speak ill of the dead. Some South Sea island tribes are cheerfully ferocious, and make much of the white man at table although he does taste salty. The Pathan, if one calls him a savage, takes a delight in immorality. But uncouth? The commonality of the English-speaking nations have a deliberate preference for ugly costume and decorations, foul speech is usual among men, vulgarity is a privilege of both sexes, and awkwardness of bearing is almost universal. Who are we to call the savage uncouth? Compared with a white man, the savage is a gentleman anyway and usually sets us an example in purity of speech, often in cleanliness, chastity, and good faith. He differs from the healthier types of white men in having slightly less energy and vitality, in lack of sustained purpose and in being never quite grown up. Except in Africa, our microbes and not our valour conquered him, and his failure to rival us in material progress was due to lack of material rather than want of {97} brains. The ferocious savage of fiction could not have tamed the horse. It is quite likely that men killed and ate ponies for ages before it occurred to our ancestors that the creatures would be a deal more useful alive. But how was Four-feet overtaken and killed by Two-feet? Science has nothing to say on that point. We are not told. Science has discovered that in Western Europe there were various phases of culture which are called (1), the Eolithic, when men used natural stones for weapons, (2) the old Stone Age, when flints were flaked to make spear and arrow points, (3) and the new Stone Age, when stones for weapon heads were ground and polished, (4) the Bronze Age, (5) and the Iron Age. It is true that flaking flints for flint-lock guns continues in England in face of all theories of the Neolithic, because a flaked flint will make sparks, whereas a ground flint won't. It is also true that Europe is the only part of the world with flints for flaking. The general application of the theory is also a little difficult on the Western American range, where there are fine silicate stones; but, in defiance of the Neolithic culture, the savages persist in flaking them for spear and arrow points while they {98} deliberately grind stones for club heads, axe heads, and mortars. Still worse, the debauched Eskimo grind and carve stone lamps, but in their heathen blindness use bone and ivory for the heads of harpoons and bird darts. The savages I have known belonged to the Old Bone Age. [Sidenote: The hunter]