hed
with celerity of trained labor, still, as is general with labor, they
earned all they got. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." I
found many apt, some stupid; honesty and dishonesty in usual quantities,
with craft peculiar to savage life.

Their mode of stealing by stages was peculiar. The thing coveted was
first hid nearby; if no inquiry was made for a period deemed
sufficiently long the change of ownership became complete and its
removal to their own hut followed, to be disposed of when opportunity
offered. If you had a particle of evidence and made a positive
accusation, with the threat of "King George's man-of-war," it was likely
to be forthcoming by being placed secretly nearby its proper place. But
through it we see the oneness of human frailty, whether in the watered
stock of the corporation or that of its humble servitor the milkman,
there is kinship. To get something for nothing is the "ignis fatuus"
ever in the lead. My experience during a year's stay on the island, and
constant intercourse with the natives, impressed me more and more with
the conviction that we are all mainly the creatures of environments;
yet through all the strata and fiber of human nature there is a chord
that beats responsive to kindness--a "language that the dumb can speak,
and that the deaf can understand."

The English mode of dealing with semi-civilized dependents is vastly
different from ours. While vigorously administering the law for proper
government, protection of life, and suppression of debauchery by
unscrupulous traders, they inspired respect for the laws and the love of
their patrons. Uprisings and massacres among Indians in her Majesty's
dominions are seldom, if ever, to be chronicled. Many of our Indian wars
will remain a blot on the page of impartial history, superinduced, as
they were, by wanton murder or the covet of lands held by them by sacred
treaties, which should have been as sacredly inviolate. Followed by
decimation of tribes by toleration of the whisky trade and the
conveyance of loathsome disease. The climate of the island was much more
pleasant than expected. The warm ocean currents on the Pacific temper
the atmosphere, rendering it more genial than the same degree of
latitude on the Atlantic. A few inches of snow, a thin coat of ice on
the river, were the usual attendants of winter. But more frequently our
camp was overhung by heavy clouds, broken by Mt. Seymour, precipitating
much rain.

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