Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/334

 jackal; theft is not a crime with him, because he cannot appreciate that theft is wrong. So it has been found necessary to drive him to the wildest and most inaccessible sections of the country, and, when he appears in civilization, is hunted as ruthlessly as are cunning and dangerous wild animals. No Bushman has ever been know to cultivate a field; he lives entirely by hunting animals, wild berries, roots, etc., and no white man has ever been able to understand the Bushman's language Africa is behind us in civilization because its land is poorer. In many of our best states it was possible in early times, before fences were introduced, to plow a furrow hundreds of miles long, and every foot of the land represented a rich, deep, black soil that would produce marvelous crops without irrigation or fertilizing. There is no such land in Africa; the abundance of such land in North America explains why it has a hundred million progressive people, and is everywhere known as the best country the sun shines on. Possibly modesty should cause us to boast less, but the big talk we use in Fourth of July addresses is not far from the truth Do Americans boast a good deal? On the contrary, I sometimes fear they habitually deny nearly every good thing that may be said about their country. In Johannesburg I was given a big bundle of American newspapers and magazines, and read them in coming here. I saw no boasting; on the contrary, I read dozens of sensational scandals that were in the main baseless. One worthy and useful old gentleman, I read, is being harassed by an impudent investigating committee, although so ill that he cannot speak above a whisper. I read that a