Fugen eBooks

At the
end of the contest cordial relations are at once re-established. And yet
so full of contradictions is their character, that all this is without
prejudice to what has been written of their family vendettas and private
blood feuds. Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and
violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so
strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind.
I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were to
understand their mental impulses--if he knew, when it was their honour
to stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when they
were bound to protect and when to kill him--he might, by judging his
times and opportunities, pass safely from one end of the mountains to
the other. But a civilised European is as little able to accomplish
this, as to appreciate the feelings of those strange creatures, which,
when a drop of water is examined under a microscope, are revealed
amiably gobbling each other up, and being themselves complacently
devoured.


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