Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/110

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There is no such towering elevation of an individmil above the mass amongst savages as amongst eiviHzed Caucasians ; but comparing the savage with only the lower and uneducated European, it would be hazardoua to affirm tliat the black is inferior to the white. Under existing Iconditions the former can produce no Shakspeare or Kewton, but the latter can vie with it in types of degradation. Nor must it be forgotten that the first great poet produced by Kussia was the grandson of a negress of full blood. Surveying man throughout the globe, examining his structure, comparing the skulls of races, laterally, vertically, and by measurement of the base, Dr. Pritchard concluded Native : Bat the coach has its t'Op upwards. When the world had got ub to the imder aide we should faU away. Doctor I No; the flies don't faU from the ceiling. Native : WeU, how would the rivers run t Doctor I Oh, all the aame as when we are ou the coach. Nafivi! : Ah, doctor* that won't do* Ferby-ps the river rimning the same way that the world waa turning niight run all right, but the river running the other way — how could that manage, always the wrong way — uphill? With great glee the triumphant casuist tleclared that the doctor was eileneed. As a cnntrri^t, it may be mentionetl that an English peasant, grumbling at the ** wrong things'^ taught, aaid to the author that the ooly good he could .'sec in a school was to keep children out nf misehiei *' Why, sir, they teachea 'em as the world's ronnd* That's all very well for people as hasn't travelled, but for you and me, sir, as has f.'onie out to the colony in , <a ship, it won't do, for we knows well lib it's tiat. " Which of these men, the Caucaaian or the Australian, would any reader prefer for a companion ? Always cheerful, often witty, keen for sport, and an accomplisheii huntsman, the Australian was a general favourite. On one uccasion he traveMed from the Murrumbidgee (his native place) to Adelaide with cattle. The small vessel whieh was to carry iiis employer and others to Sydney was wrecked on Kangaroo Island, Vheti the party escaped to the shore the native was rudely treated by some who grudged him room in the boat. But aoon the seene waa changed. He l>ecame their hope, and the grudgers cringed to him. ** 1 was almost like a governor. The same men who wanted to keep me out of the boat came to nie like eheep, * Please, Jenuny, coine and catcli a kangaroo, or show us how. Oh, do !' It made mo laugh. They did not deserve it, but I had to help then), for 1 did not want tnem to starve. They were a bad lot." ^i Sir Thomas Mitchell was accompanied in his official explorations by ^H natives. He wrote: — ** They have been described ass the lowest in the ^U scale of humanityj yet I found those who nccoinpanied me superior in ^H penetration and lodgment to the white men eomposing my party." Such is the difference l:>etween personal experience and the evolution of a scheme in a study. 4 4 ne ^^