introduction of the horse. It is an unquestionable fact, that the equestrian tribes are far more savage and untameable than those which have not as yet become horsemen, for the possession of steeds affords a wider range for the indulgence of nomadic habits, and especially for distant marauding expeditions. The change has already become so great, as to attract the earnest attention of the American Congress; but the means of prevention are not so easily discovered as the amount of the evil, for colonization, except on a very large scale, would be more likely to degrade the civilized man, than to elevate the savage.

The agricultural form of barbarous life is principally found in the islands of the Pacific Ocean. When left to itself, it is found to be not less stationary than the nomade forms; for the New Zealanders of the present day are not one whit more advanced than their countrymen when first visited by Captain Cook. But an agricultural race of barbarians offers far greater facilities for civilization than the hunting and pastoral tribes; a greater advance has been made in Hawaï within a few years, than has been effected among the natives of America since the first discovery of that continent.

It has been said that savages have seldom or never chosen civilized life of their own accord, but that civilized men have been known voluntarily to adopt the habits and customs of savages. We have seen that this is to some extent true in the case of hunting tribes, whose life of excitement gratifies our natural propensities. The civilized man has only to divest himself of certain tastes, and to forbear the exercise of certain faculties, in order to fit himself for enjoying a

life of adventure; the savage has the double task of laying aside acquired habits, and rousing into action faculties which have lain dormant from his cradle, and become all but extinct from desuetude.

But the change in any case must result from comparison. The American Indians, subsisting by the chase of the elk, the deer, and the buffalo, offer to the view of the white man a life of capital sport, enhanced, as we have already shewn, by its very privations; on the contrary, the Indians are objects of admiration to the white observer, from the superior skill which long practice has given them in detecting the marks of their game, following the animals to their lair, and baffling their attempts to escape by ingenious devices. But the admiration of the Indian is not excited in turn by the superiority of the white man in ploughing and weaving, since he prefers venison to bread, and skins to cloth. In this aspect, civilized life is not attractive to the Indian, but barbarous life is to the white man; and hence, on the outskirts of American population we find a savage race of degenerate whites, "the pioneers" of advancement, who push forward like the Indians themselves, when civilization treads too closely on their heels.

But among agricultural races of barbarians, this picture is directly reversed. The New Zealanders have no beasts to chase; they feed upon fish, or upon the vegetables which they rudely cultivate. Here the superiority of the white man is at once evident; the plough, in the eyes of both, is a better agricultural implement than a sharp stick, and both see that it is easier to weave cloth in a loom than with the hand. Indeed, the passion which the South-Sea islanders

evince for European articles of dress, is in itself a tacit confession of inferiority. While among the nomades of Asia no curse is deemed more bitter, than "May God put a hat on you!" no higher compliment could be paid to a New Zealander, than to bestow a hat on him.

It may, however, be said, that the process of improvement is likely to be slow; indeed, the reluctance of farmers to adopt any change, however beneficial, has been matter of notoriety from the earliest ages. In Ireland, it was necessary to pass several acts of parliament to prevent fastening ploughs to the tails of the horses, and burning oats in the straw to avoid the labour of threshing; and it is singular to find that the repeal of these acts was among the chief articles demanded from the Duke of Ormond, at the treaty of Kilkenny, in 1648. A century afterwards, both practices are noticed as still existing, by Moffatt, in his Hiberno-neso-graphia:

The western isle renown'd for bogs,
For tories and for great wolf-dogs,
For drawing hobbies by the tails,
And threshing corn with fiery flails.

None of these practices were adopted by the English settlers; on the contrary, the Irish gradually adopted the improved system of tillage introduced from Great Britain. It seems, therefore, not unreasonable to conclude, that the New Zealander will be induced to adopt improvements in the arts by which he subsists, while it seems improbable that the white man would adopt the more clumsy implements and the less productive culture of the savage.

Climate is the cause of some varieties in savage life; the colder climates will not admit of such improvidence as is manifested in tropical countries. "Such negligence in providing clothing and habitations, and in laying up stores of provisions, as in warm and fertile countries is not incompatible with existence in a very rude state, would, in more inhospitable regions, destroy the whole race in the course of a single winter." Every exertion of industry, of economy, and of foresight, is an advance in civilization, and an impediment to degeneracy. The early inhabitants of the British isles, even in the most barbarous parts, appear to have been very superior to the South-Sea islanders. They were forced to exercise "the proud prerogatives of humanity" -labour and ingenuity,—and hence it was, even in the earliest time, our national boast

MAN is the nobler growth these realms supply,
And Souls are ripened in our northern sky.

CHAPTER X.

THE ARTS OF SAVAGE LIFE.

In the history of human inventions, few things are more remarkable than the sudden checks which the progress of ingenuity appears to have received from apparently trifling obstacles. The Romans seem to have been for many years on the verge of discovering printing; they used letter-stamps, which might reasonably be expected to suggest the notion of types, and yet centuries elapsed before any one seems to have thought of combining several stamps together. On the other hand, it is generally difficult to discover by whose ingenuity the obstacle was first removed: the origin of printing is one of the most contested points in literary history, and there is scarcely one great improvement in machinery that has not been claimed by several inventors. But while there are doubts respecting the authors and even the countries of inventions, their dates can for the most part be ascertained with tolerable precision, or at least the periods when they began to be brought into practical operation. On examination, it will be found that most inventions of which we have a record, resulted from some want or necessity, created by the existing state of civilization; that there is a great harmony observable in the progress of the different arts, and that improvements are for the most part simultaneous, or nearly so, in the principal