It is even harder, when he is most barbarous and besotted in his ignorance, to disturb his complacency and self-conceit. "It was most ludicrous," says Darwin, "to watch through a glass the Indians, as often as the shot struck the water, take up stones, and, as a bold defiance, throw them toward the ship, though about a mile and a half distant! A boat was then sent with orders to fire a few musket-shots wide of them. The Fuegians hid themselves behind the trees, and for every discharge of the muskets they fired their arrows; all, however, fell short of the boat, and the officer as he pointed at them laughed. This made the Fuegians frantic with passion, and they shook their mantles in vain rage. At last, seeing the balls cut and strike the trees, they ran away, and we were left in peace and quietness." Mungo Park, while traveling in Africa, once entered a region until that time unexplored by civilized man. His escort of Guinea negroes carried him to witness a gala-day jollification. The sable chief was sitting on a stump in the centre of a cleared half-acre, his face tattooed, trinkets dangling from his nose, ears, chin, etc., and his subjects were dancing around him. Having sold negroes, captured in war, to the slave-traders on the coast, the chief had learned to speak a little outlandish English. When the visitor approached His Majesty,--the dance suspended,--he exclaimed: "English?" "Yes," said Park, "I am an Englishman." "Way over yonder?" said the chief, pointing westward. "Yes," answered Park; "three thousand miles off." "What folks say 'bout me dar?" was the eager inquiry of his African Majesty. The half-naked barbarians of Abyssinia claim descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and boast that all other kings are but upstarts and pretenders compared to theirs. Reminding the reader of the "most mighty emperor of Lilliput" (six inches in height), described in the famous state paper as the "delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions extend (about twelve miles in circumference) to the extremities of the globe; monarch of all monarchs, taller than the sons of men; whose feet press down to the centre, and whose head strikes against the sun; at whose nod the princes of the earth shake their knees; pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as winter."