Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

» 1835. KXTllACT FROM MACKIXTOSH. 57S aspect might be more horrible in war. The use of carriages in war is a singular instance of labour and skill among such a people. Their domestic life was little above promiscuous inter- course. Societies of men, generally composed of the nearest relations, had wives in common. The issue of this intercourse were held to belong to the man (if such there should be) who formed a separate and lasting connexion with their mother. Where that appropriation did not occur, no man is described as answerable for the care of the children." Again, Sir James says " The Britons had a government rather occasional than con- stant, in which various political principles prevailed by turns. The power of eloquence, of valour, of experience, sometimes of beauty, over a multitude, for a time threw them into the appearance of a democracy. When their humour led them to follow the council of their elders, the community seemed to be aristocratic. The necessities of war, and the popularity of a fortunate commander, vested in him in times of peril a sort of monarchical power, limited by his own prudence, and the pa- tience of his followers, rather than by laws, or even customs. Punishment sprung from revenge : it was sometimes inflicted to avenge the wrong's of others. It is an abuse of terms to bestow the name of a free government on such a state of society : men, in such circumstances, lived without restraint but they lived without security. Human nature, in that state, is capable of occasional flashes of the highest virtues. Men not only scorn danger, and disregard privation, but even show rough sketches of ardent kindness, of faithful gratitude, of the most generous self-devotion. But the movements of their feel- ings are too irregular to be foreseen. Ferocious anger may, in a moment, destroy the most tender afffection. Savages have no virtues on which it is possible to rely." Speaking of missionaries, the same historian states, that " Our scanty information relating to the earliest period of Saxon rule, leaves it as dark as it is horrible. But Christianity brought with it some mitigation. A.D. 596. The arrival of