“Well, they would be well treated.”
“And brought up as savages?”
“I suppose so.”
Lestrange sighed.
“Look here,” said the captain; “it’s all very well talking, but upon my word I think that we civilised folk put on a lot of airs, and waste a lot of pity on savages.”
“How so?”
“What does a man want to be but happy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, who is happier than a naked savage in a warm climate? Oh, he’s happy enough, and he’s not always holding a corroboree. He’s a good deal of a gentleman; he has perfect health; he lives the life a man was born to live face to face with Nature. He doesn’t see the sun through an office window or the moon through the smoke of factory chimneys; happy and civilised too—but, bless you, where is he? The whites have driven him out; in one or two small islands you may find him still—a crumb or so of him.”
“Suppose,” said Lestrange, “suppose those children had been brought up face to face with Nature—”