The chase is almost his sole means of existence; for he is no shepherd, and still less is he a tiller of the ground. He contents himself with gathering those alimentary substances which Nature spontaneously pours out at his feet; and as, among these, the flesh of animals is that which he prefers, he exerts all his physical faculties, and all the resources of his intelligence, to procure it. He fashions for himself arms; he learns to handle them skilfully, as well as to follow up the scent of the game, to contend with the wild beast in agility or cunning; and he displays in this exercise a courage, a patience, and an ardour augmented by the stimulus of vanity, which prompts every tribe and every individual to claim the crown of superior bravery and the prize of surpassing skill. From emulation to rivalry, from the chase to the campaign, there is but one step. War, for the savage, is but a more dangerous and a more glorious chase; a chase more productive and more fertile in pleasures than the ordinary chase. Therein his self-love, as well as his fierce sanguinary instincts, can be amply gratified; and he feels a keener delight than in the pursuit of the lion or the tiger. He also derives from it far greater advantages, realizes far more considerable profits; the likeness is moreover all the closer, since he looks upon his vanquished enemy sometimes as a prey, sometimes as a slave or a thing for sale or barter. He may either kill him and eat him, or constrain him to labour for him; or finally sell him for money, or exchange him against other "goods and chattels." If he does not cut him down on the battle-field, and it should not suit him to let his captive live, he may enjoy the pleasure of varying and multiplying his tortures before he deals the death-blow. Among all savage races no banquet is more eagerly enjoyed than the torture of their prisoners. It is generally round the stake to which the shuddering victims are confined, or their throbbing and bleeding remains, just about to be devoured, that the conquerors execute fantastic dances, and surrender themselves to noisy manifestations of joy, making the air re-echo with their discordant songs and the not less discordant sounds of their rude musical instruments; then after the hideous banquet--accursed as that which Pelops offered to the gods--seated around the glowing embers, and in the midst of the frightful fragments of the feast, they love to recall their achievements in the battle and the chase, or beguile the time with some rude game of chance. Gambling, like war and the chase, seems to be an innate passion with savages; and, sooth to say, it is a vice worthy of them and of their brutalized nature. Rightly does the poet exclaim,--