ndancy in the animal world and
acquiring a greater mastery over his surroundings.

In these forests teeming with animal life of all kinds man had to hold
his own against dangerous and stronger animals, and to supply
himself with food in the face of many rivals. He had to be as alert as
the sharpest-witted and as cunning as the most crafty, and to have
physical fitness and endurance to stand the strain of incessant rivalry.
This is what these jungle people have. Their alertness, their capacity
to glide through the forest almost as stealthily as an animal, their
keenness of sight, their acute sense of hearing, their knowledge of
jungle lore and of the habits of animals, and their ability to stand
long and hard physical strain, are the envy of us civilised men when
we find ourselves among them. Particularly is this shown when
tracking. They will note the slightest indication of the passage of the
animal they are after--the faintest footprint, a stone overturned and
showing the moisture on its under surface, a broken twig, a bitten
leaf, the bark rubbed--and they will be able to judge from the exact
appearance of these signs how long it is since the animal made them.
They will, too, detect sounds which we civilised men would
certainly never hear, and from a note of alarm in these sounds, or
from excitement among birds, infer the presence of a dangerous
animal.

When seen outside the forests these jungle men look wild and
unkempt, but seen in their natural surroundings and compared
_there_ with the white man, they have a Beauty which is wanting in
the white man. In _these_ surroundings they have a dignity and
composure and assurance which the European lacks. They are on
their own ground, and there they are beautiful.

And these primitive men are worthy of being painted by the very
greatest of painters, and of having their praises sung by the very first
of poets. For it is they and their like who, with only such weapons as
the forest affords and their own ingenuity devised, won the way
through for us civilised men, won the battle against the fierce and
much more powerful beasts around them, and by great daring and
through sheer skill, courage, and endurance led the way to the light.
It was a marvellous feat. For all the privileges and immunities which
we men of to-day enjoy we have to thank these primitive forest men,
and our gratitude could never be too great. They are deserving of the
closest attention and the warmest a