river, being
devoured by these carnivorous lizards.

"They related to us an interesting story of a young daughter of
Urituen, who, by extraordinary intrepidity and presence of mind,
succeeded in extricating herself from the very jaws of a
crocodile. When she felt herself seized by the voracious animal in
the water, she felt for its eyes, and thrust her fingers into them
with such violence that she forced the animal to let go, but not
before he had torn off the lower part of her left arm. The Indian
girl, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of blood which she
lost, succeeded in swimming to shore with the hand which was left,
and escaped without further injury. In those desert regions, where
man is constantly in strife with animated or inanimated nature,
they daily speak of similar or corresponding means by which it is
possible to escape from a tiger, a great boa, or a crocodile.
Every one prepares himself against a danger which may any day
befall him, 'I knew,' said the young girl calmly, when praised for
her presence of mind, 'that the crocodile lets go his hold when
you plunge your fingers in his eyes.' Long after my return to
Europe, I learned that the negroes in the interior of Africa make
use of the same method to escape from the alligators in the Niger.
Who does not recollect with warm interest, that Isaaco the guide,
in his last journey of the unfortunate Mungo Park, was seized
twice near Boulinkombro, and that he escaped from the throat of
the monster solely by thrusting his fingers into his two eyes?[5]
The African Isaaco and the young American girl owed their safety
to the same presence of mind, and the same combination of
ideas."--(Vol. vi. 203, 205.)

If there is any one fact more than another demonstrated by the
concurring testimony of travellers, historians, and statistical
observers, in all ages and quarters of the world, it is, that the
possession of _property in land_ is the first step in social
improvement, and the only effectual humanizer of Savage Man.
Rousseau's famous paradox, "The first Man who enclosed a field, and
called it mine, is the author of all the social ills which followed,"
is not only false but decidedly the reverse of the truth. He was the
first and greatest benefactor of his species. Subsequent ills have
arisen, not from following but forgetting his example; and preferring