Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/116

 *nous population of Australia (a chocolate-colored people, rather than black) comes nearest of all living men to the basal stock of our race, and behind him lies a long vista of semi-humanity till apehood is reached. This was a new statement to me The human genus was evolved somewhere in Asia, most probably in India, according to the best authority. This was a long time ago; human remains at least five hundred thousand years old have been found in the Rhine basin near Heidelberg, and it is believed the race is much older in Asia. But the original man was a black man, or a yellow man; the white man originated much later, and, according to Sir H. H. Johnston, he originated in Australia. So I am visiting the home of my remote ancestors. While man is very old, he ceased only twenty-five or thirty thousand years ago—this is only a guess of scientists, but the best information we have—to live in an absolutely savage condition as a mere hunter of other animals. The present civilized man gradually developed from a start made probably thirty thousand years ago. It was the white man who made this start toward civilization, and he originated in Australia, if Sir H. H. Johnston knows what he is talking about. The white man has always been an adventurer, and, in the course of ages, spread over the earth.

—The New-Zealander who sits at our table, and who lived awhile at Lancaster, Pa., said at breakfast this morning:

"The people of the United States are the smartest