trees, shrubs, and wild beasts; he has goat's feet to denote the
stability of the earth; he has a pipe of seven reeds on account of the
harmony of the heavens, in which there are seven sounds; he has a crook,
that is a curved staff, on account of the year, which runs back on
itself _because he is the god of all Nature_."

Bernardin de St. Pierre observes of Pantomime, "That it was the first
language of man; it is known to all nations; and is so natural and so
expressive that the children of white parents learn it rapidly when they
see it used by the negroes."

Of the Pantomimic language--a universal language and common to the whole
world from time immemorial--Charles Darwin says in his "Descent of Man,"
that "The intellectual and social faculties of man could hardly have
been inferior in any extreme degree to those now possessed by the
lowest savage; otherwise primeval man could not have been so eminently
successful in the struggle for life as proved by his early and wide
diffusion. From the fundamental differences between certain languages
some philologists have inferred that, when man first became widely
diffused, he was not a speaking animal; but it may be suspected that
languages, far less perfect than any now spoken, _aided by gestures_,
might have been used, and yet have left no traces on subsequent and more
highly-developed tongues."

With the progress of, and also as an aid to, civilization how could the
traveller or the trader, not only in the beginning of time, but also
now, when occasion demands, in their intercourse with foreign nations
(unless, of course, they know the language) make themselves understood,
or be able to trade, unless they were or are able to use that "dumb
silent language"--Pantomime? Civilization undoubtedly owes much of its