Windship a remarkably strong one. "It is now well
known," says Prichard, "that all savage races have less muscular power
than civilized men." Johnstone in Northern Africa, and Cumming in
Southern Africa, could find no one to equal them in strength of arm.
At the Sandwich Islands, Ellis records, that, "when a boat manned by
English seamen and a canoe with natives left the shore together, the
canoe would uniformly leave the boat behind, but they would soon relax,
while the seamen, pulling steadily on, would pass them, but, if the
voyage took three hours, would invariably reach the destination first."
Certain races may have been regularly trained by position and necessity
in certain particular arts,--as Sandwich-Islanders in swimming, and our
Indians in running,--and may naturally surpass the average skill of
those who are comparatively out of practice in that speciality; yet it
is remarkable that their greatest feats even in these ways never seem
to surpass those achieved by picked specimens of civilization.
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