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(OIUAMENT OF SAVAGE TRIBES.
The ornaments in the woodcuts below and at the side show a far higher advance
in the distribution
of curved lines, the twisted rope forming the type as it naturally would
be of all curved lines in ornament.
The uniting of two strands for additional strength would early accustom
the eye to the spiral line, and we always find this form side by side with
Head of Canoe, New Guinea.
geometrical patterns formed by the interlacing of equal lines in the orna-
ment of every savage tribe, and retained in the more advanced art of every
civilised nation.
Read of Canoe, New Guinea.
From the Side of a Canoe,
New Zealand.           The ornament of a savage tribe, being the result of
a natural instinct,
is necessarily always true to its purpose; whilst in much of the ornament
of civilised nations, the first
impulse which generated received forms being enfeebled by constant repetition,
the ornament is often-
times misapplied, and instead of first seeking the most convenient form and
adding beauty, all beauty is
destroyed, because all fitness, by superadding ornament to ill-contrived
form.  If we would return to
a more lihalthy condition, we must even be as little children or as sava-es;
wve must get rid of the
acquired and artificial, and return to and develope natural instincts.
The beautiful New Zealand paddle, Nos. 5-8, on Plate III., would rival works
of the highest civilisa-
tion: there is not a line upon its surface misapplied.  The geneial shape
is most elegant, and the
decoration everywhere the best adapted to develope the ferm.    A modern
manufacturer, with his
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