Evening star., 1922-02-19

! II
! * great war, like everybody
else, and striving to do it as
| we'll as anybody else, Fer
rier, a fellow of the Society of Natu-
! raj Sciences. had been charged with
a mission in western Africa. / know
| that his greatest desire is to go back
there. Those who have once tasted
! the life of the jungle always go back
to the jungle. which doesn't prevent
| them from cursing it when they are
there. ] was trying to explain this
! to myself.
| 1T is the sense of liberty. isn't it?
The joy of being "A white among the
blacks of feeling superior to those
who surround you? And the reawak-
ening of primitive instincts. the pleas
ure of doing big things
! Ferrier made a gesture of denial.
| which surprised me. II was almost
! indignant.
! LAS for me-" he said. Il shall never
fire a gun again in my life. l have
i seen too much killing in the war. ]
have seen too many men die. / shall
1
there are days when 1 want never to
eat any more meat, when i wish TO
make myself a vegetarian. The odor
of the field of battle. before it be-
comes that of a charnel house-n You
only knew how much il is like the
! odor of an abattoir..
Even before. even in Africa. years
iaI xx-i.l, iS
question. Here in Europe we see only
domesticaetd animals. deprived by
our patient intelligence OF their own
| intelligence, incapable of sustaining
themselves, mentally brutaliZed. On
, the contrary. in those primitive coun-
tries man is still such an inconse-
uuential thing. He holds so small a
place. and not altogether the place of
honor The distance between him
and the beast is lessened. but often il
; isn't the man who has, the advan-
tage.
| :: :. x i
..THERE are scientific reasons for
Asupposing that We do not rep
!
| has made to introduce into the world
| the first CLEANS of reason, of free
I, will, of industry. of something like
| morality. 1t is an hypothesis which
| can be sustained, and which was
sustained in the first days of the
planet before man appeared on the
! earth, by the insects-the great
i insects whose remains we find in the
depths of our coal mines These
made automatically. without know
ing why, without instruction from
| Immediately preceding generations
the same movements, all of an in
comprehensive provision. But such
movements must originally have been
experimental and tentative and were
brought to perfection only by de-
grees. finally establishing themselves
in perfection which became instinc-
tive. When the human race is as old
as the race of the ants, who knows II
all its motions will not also become
automatic?
| zone day 1 was on a river called the
MBonnou. / can't recall a place more
I savage. The country doesn't belong
to men, but to the huge creatures
who existed before men did. Espe-
cislly to elephants. AS my pirogue
advanced traces Of them along the
bluffs became more numerous. We
saw them for a moment in the drink
Ting pools which their massive feet
had squeezed out along the banks
where they came for water. Then
they broke through q curtain Of thick
bronxe-colored leaves and disap-
peared.
| FINALLY, at a bend in the stream
I surprised two elephants busily
| drinking, who hadn't seen the
| pirogue. The river ran in mar
| row channel between steep slopes,
which even their giant legs would
have had dificulty In climbing. ]
put my ride to my shoulder and fred.