Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

226 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
the missionary, but who would kill any of their
women on whom the white man should merely look
to lust after her. . . . The term " savages," so
glibly bestowed by writers on the Indian races,
would be more correctly applied to those Christian
nations who play at the game of war, and who,
instead of deciding their differences on the principle
of " doing to others as you would they should do to
you," kill,
they
burn, and waste as many and as much as
can.
. . . Yet the introduction of a pure and simple
Christianity might much benefit the Indian and
;
we must not too harshly judge him for transgressions
against our own moral code. The Indian's notion
of " crime," for example, is not the same as ours.
He feels the disgrace of being found out in a lie or
a theft, but if he escapes detection he exults in his
adroitness. He is naturally apathetic and dislikes
exertion but he makes his wife work like a ; slave.
On the Rio I Negro have seen the poor women
and
grating mandiocca by moonlight until midnight ;
they must be stirring before daybreak to give their
husband his morning drink while ; he, extended in
his hammock, is warming his nether extremities
near a fire which must not be allowed to go out.
When I had seen this, I felt no pity for the Indian
when the white man took him by force to row his
boats and do other work for him.
. . . On March 22 of this year a fearful earth-
quake shook the whole of the Quitonian Andes.
The damage done in Quito itself is estimated
at four millions of dollars, and some adjacent
villages are quite
came by day, only
; destroyed but as
a few people were
the shock
killed who