The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1898-12-14

that where man is weak anu ueaSIs Hu-
merous, az in the country beyond the
Zambesi and Shire River the bold"es
of the animals leads to serious d,sas-
ters. In the present day the only
frequent reports Of attacks of lions
and leopards on men, for food and not
in self defense or fright, come from
these districts, though the story is as
old as the rebuilding Of SAmaris.
If, as seems probable, the animal
fear of man was acquired, and is NOT
natural to their minds, it is not very
clear now the very early tribes of men.
when the larger carniverous animals
were far more numerous than now
escaped destruction and survived long
enough to impress on the animal world
the sense of fear by which man now
dominates it. Regarded merely as a
conflict between one class Of animal
aud another, the result should not
have been dou.ted. Man ought to
have disappeared from the face of the
earth, or, in any case, to have retreat
ed to remote strongholds in regions
not frequented by the beasts. That
he did not do so, but turned the ta-
bles on the better equipped offensive
creature, is fair presumptive evidence
that original man never was on level
with the animals in intelligence, but
was equipped with the predominant
brain power which has put him ahead
in the race ever since. Primitive
man, literally speaking, ';lived by his
wits,' for he was evidently not nearly
SO well equipped as the monkeys for
physical offense or fight, thoug b
their survival is not altogether easy to
explain on purely physical grounds.
Their power of us ng their arms and
hands as means Of swinging rapidly
from branch to branch gives them an
advantage over all the tree e-climbipg
cats. Their habit of throwing mis-
siles is also very disconcerting to other
animals. though this art is only prac-
ticed by certain monkeys. But their
rapid and intelligent combination for
defense, menace, and outlook duty,
has contributed quite as much to their
survival as their speed and activity.
In tropical America even the mon
keys are hard put to it to escape the
attacks of such active and formidable
foes as the harpy eagle and the ocelot
But it cannot be that even the most
debased or physically weakest of man
kind has ever been the natural prey"
of that natural enemy which, ac-
cording to Sir Samuel Baker, is the
nightmare of nearly every. species Of
non .carniverous animal The causes
which make exceptions to this rule are
temporary and narrowly local. Even
the Greenlander and the Eskimo are
the masters Of the polar bear, and
probably always have been, though
little better armed than primitive man,
and the pigmies of Central American
forests are mighty hunters. 1t may
even be that the neighborhood of fierce
animals aided the early development
Of man; for the least developed races
are largely found in such places as
Terra del Fuego, where, in the absence
of savage beast, savage men had no
inducement to arm and equip himself.
But man has an even more potent
ally than his own ingenuity, which
from remote antiquity has invested
him in the mind Of the animal world
with something of the supernatural.
He is ever accompanied by the one
element which the animal mind can
not create, cannot understand, stands
in constant awe of and breads by night,
when its courage is greatest and that
Of man least steady. Fire, that pillar
of cloud and fame which precedes not
only the aggregate human host, but
the smallest fragment of the invading
army, the constant and dreaded har-
binger of human presence, springing
up, as the beasts must think, auto
matically from the earth wherever man
rests his body, guarding him in sleep
ing and waking, always associated with
his abode, has for ages terrified the
beasts.
Since the first appearance of man in
any given region of the earth he has
been teaching the beast to fear him,
and it is not until to-day, when he is
absolutely their master, and has in
many instances totally destroyed them,
that he thinks of restoring on tiny
scale and on few spots on the earth S
surface "the state Of nature, and al
lowing those creatures which he dares
to experiment with, once more to lay