dear reader, you must have remarked
that in those savages are to be found real treasures of uprightness,
honesty and common sense. And the first seeds of these virtues were sown
by nobody for they bud and blossom in their souls as spontaneously as
from the bosom of great Mother Nature the marvellous multitude of flora
rises up towards the sun, seeking light and heat.

It is not so amongst us. Civilization teaches virtue: sermons preach it;
moralists condense it into precepts and aphorisms; historians honour it
in the ancients in order to inspire it in the moderns; laws, and the
menaces of Hell, want to impose it. And yet, notwithstanding all this,
it cannot flower well for too often it is fettered by the frenzy of
"getting ahead" and by the spasms of passions which in the superb
majesty of the forest, and under its sublime influence, are neither
known nor understood. Here one works serenely, undisturbed by the fear
that others will rob you of your profit.

I mention the fact but leave others to draw the conclusion because if I
arrived at that which would seem most logical after the premise, I
should be called a worse savage than those I have held up to public
admiration and if I arrived at any other I should be accused (and with
reason) of contradiction.

I will instead declare that, in spite of certain discouraging proofs, I
firmly keep my faith in human progress, believing that Science will one
day succeed in lessening the grand anguish accruing from the incessant
and cruel "struggle for life".

My chief reason for illustrating the virtues and defects of the
little-known Sakais is to present them more closely to the attention of
England, that, by delivering them from the contempt and able trickery of
other races, might easily lead them to civilization and at the same time
form important and lucrative centres of agricultural product in the
interior of the Peninsula.

It is without the slightest idea of boasting that I state I have always
remained among the Sakais alone and unarmed, in my work as a colonist.
In this way it was possible for me to overcome hostility and mistrust,
winning confidence and affection from one of the most uncivilized of
peoples. And the fact gives me the greatest satisfaction for it
demonstrates in a modest, but not for that less eloquent manner, that
armed expeditions however fine and imposing in appearance (according to
taste) have not the practical or lasting value of peaceful, friendly