(M109) With regard to the North American Indians a writer who knew them well has said that among them “the idea of immortality is strongly dwelt upon. It is not spoken of as a supposition or a mere belief, not fixed. It is regarded as an actuality,—as something known and approved by the judgment of the nation. During the whole period of my residence and travels in the Indian country, I never knew and never heard of an Indian who did not believe in it, and in the reappearance of the body in a future state. However mistaken they are on the subject of accountabilities for acts done in the present life, no small part of their entire mythology, and the belief that sustains the man in his vicissitudes and wanderings here, arises from the anticipation of ease and enjoyment in a future condition, after the soul has left the body. The resignation, nay, the alacrity with which an Indian frequently lies down and surrenders life, is to be ascribed to this prevalent belief. He does not fear to go to a land which, all his life long, he has heard abounds in rewards without punishments.”(382) Another traveller, who saw much of the South American Indians, asserts that they surpass the beasts in their insensibility to hardship and pain, never complaining in sickness nor even when they are being killed, and exhibiting in their last moments an apathetic indifference untroubled by any misgiving as to the future.(383) (M110) Wholesale butcheries of human beings were perpetrated till lately in the name of religion in the west African kingdom of Dahomey. As to the behaviour of the victims we are told that “almost invariably, those doomed to die exhibit the greatest coolness and unconcern. The natural dread of death which the instinct of self-preservation has implanted in every breast, often leads persons who are liable to be seized for immolation to endeavour to escape; but once they are seized and bound, they resign themselves to their fate with the greatest apathy. This is partly due to the less delicate nervous system of the negro; but one reason, and that not the least, is that they have nothing to fear. As has been said, they have but to undergo a surgical operation and a change of place of residence; there is no uncertain future to be faced, and, above all, there is an entire absence of that notion of a place of terrible punishment which makes so many Europeans cowards when face to face with death.”(384) One of the earliest European settlers on the coast of Brazil has remarked on the indifference exhibited by the Indian prisoners who were about to be massacred by their enemies. He conversed with the captives, men young, strong, and handsome. To his question whether they did not fear the death that was so near and so appalling, they replied with laughter and mockery. When he spoke of ransoming them from their foes, they jeered at the cowardice of Europeans.(385) The Khonds of India practised an extensive