MANAGEMENT OF SAVAGES.
General Remarks.--A frank, joking, but determined manner, joined with an
air of showing more confidence in the good faith of the natives than you
really feel, is the best. It is observed, that a sea-captain generally
succeeds in making an excellent impression on savages: they thoroughly
appreciate common sense, truth, and uprightness; and are not half such
fools as strangers usually account them. If a savage does mischief, look
on him as you would on a kicking mule, or a wild animal, whose nature is
to be unruly and vicious, and keep your temper quite unruffled. Evade the
mischief, if you can: if you cannot, endure it; and do not trouble
yourself overmuch about your dignity, or about retaliating on the man,
except it be on the grounds of expediency. There are even times when any
assumption of dignity becomes ludicrous, and the traveller must, as Mungo
Park had once to do, "lay it down as a rule to make himself as useless
and as insignificant as possible, as the only means of recovering his
liberty."
Bush Law.--It is impossible but that a traveller must often take the law
into his own hands. Some countries, no doubt, are governed with a strong
arm by a savage despot; to whom or to whose subordinates appeals must of
course be made; but, for the most part, the system of life among savages
is--
"The simple rule, the good old plan--
That they should take, who have the power;
And they should keep, who can.
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