y
see it used by the negroes."

Of the Pantomimic language--a universal language and common to the whole
world from time immemorial--Charles Darwin says in his "Descent of Man,"
that "The intellectual and social faculties of man could hardly have
been inferior in any extreme degree to those now possessed by the
lowest savage; otherwise primeval man could not have been so eminently
successful in the struggle for life as proved by his early and wide
diffusion. From the fundamental differences between certain languages
some philologists have inferred that, when man first became widely
diffused, he was not a speaking animal; but it may be suspected that
languages, far less perfect than any now spoken, _aided by gestures_,
might have been used, and yet have left no traces on subsequent and more
highly-developed tongues."

With the progress of, and also as an aid to, civilization how could the
traveller or the trader, not only in the beginning of time, but also
now, when occasion demands, in their intercourse with foreign nations
(unless, of course, they know the language) make themselves understood,
or be able to trade, unless they were or are able to use that "dumb
silent language"--Pantomime? Civilization undoubtedly owes much of its
progress to it, and, also the world at large, to this only and always
universal language. To both the deaf, as well as the dumb, its
advantages have ever been apparent.

Therefore, from prehistoric times, and from the beginning of the world,
we may presume to have had in some form or another, the Pantomimic Art.
In the lower stages of humanity, even in our own times, there is, in all
probability, a close similarity to the savagedom of mankind in the early
Antediluvian period as "This is shown (says Darwin) by the pleasure
which they all take in dancing, rude music, painting, tattooing, and
otherwise decorating themselves--in their mutual comprehension of
_gesture language_, and by the same inarticulate cries, when they are
excited by various emotions." It naturally follows that even if there
was only dancing, there must necessarily, as a form of entertainment,
have also been Pantomime. Again, all savage tribes have a war-dance of
some description, in which in fighting costume they invariably go
through, in Pantomimic form, the respective movements of the Challenge,
the Conflict, the Pursuit, and the Defeat, whilst other members of the
tribe, both men and women, give additional stimulus to t