ellow of activity, enterprise, and
sense. He husks his own cocoa-nuts, and (I am told) rolls them into the
sun to burst; he is the terror of the shepherd. Mrs. Stevenson, senior,
has seen one fleeing to the woods with a lamb in his mouth; and I saw
another come rapidly (and erroneously) to the conclusion that the
_Casco_ was going down, and swim through the flush water to the rail in
search of an escape. It was told us in childhood that pigs cannot swim;
I have known one to leap overboard, swim five hundred yards to shore,
and return to the house of his original owner. I was once, at Tautira,
a pig-master on a considerable scale; at first, in my pen, the utmost
good feeling prevailed; a little sow with a belly-ache came and appealed
to us for help in the manner of a child; and there was one shapely black
boar, whom we called Catholicus, for he was a particular present from
the Catholics of the village, and who early displayed the marks of
courage and friendliness; no other animal, whether dog or pig, was
suffered to approach him at his food, and for human beings he showed a
full measure of that toadying fondness, so common in the lower animals,
and possibly their chief title to the name. One day, on visiting my
piggery, I was amazed to see Catholicus draw back from my approach with
cries of terror; and if I was amazed at the change, I was truly
embarrassed when I learnt its reason. One of the pigs had been that
morning killed; Catholicus had seen the murder, he had discovered he was
dwelling in the shambles, and from that time his confidence and his
delight in life were ended. We still reserved him a long while, but he
could not endure the sight of any two-legged creature, nor could we,
under the circumstances, encounter his eye without confusion. I have
assisted besides, by the ear, at the act of butchery itself; the
victim's cries of pain I think I could have borne, but the execution was
mismanaged, and his expression of terror was contagious: that small
heart moved to the same tune with ours. Upon such "dread foundations"
the life of the European reposes, and yet the European is among the less
cruel of races. The paraphernalia of murder, the preparatory brutalities
of his existence, are all hid away; an extreme sensibility reigns upon
the surface; and ladies will faint at the recital of one tithe of what
they daily expect of their butchers. Some will be even crying out upon
me in their hearts for the coarseness of this