_Fire Unknown_ (Vol. iv., pp. 209. 283.).--At the time when Leibnitz
wrote, curious references to accounts of savages were not infrequent.
All your readers will remember Locke's reference to some account of
savages who had neither idea of God nor of being superior to man. It may
be that narratives of tribes who did not use fire, who lived on dried
flesh or fish, for instance, may have given rise to an idea of their not
knowing fire. I think I remember to have seen it stated that some of the
savages of Australia did not know fire. On this, five-and-twenty years
ago, I made a note from Mr. Barron Field's _Collection of Geographical
Memoirs of New South Wales_. Two wrecked Englishmen passed some time
among the natives, and found they had no knowledge that water could be
heated; but the very story seems to show that they knew of fire. On
boiling some in a tin pot,
"The whole tribe gathered round them, and watched the pot till it
began to boil, when they all took to their heels, shouting and
screaming, nor could they be persuaded to return till they saw
them pour the water out and clean the pot, when they slowly
ventured back and carefully covered the place where the water was
spilt with sand."
These two Englishmen were treated with great attention by the natives,
they were painted twice a day, and it was quite their own faults that
they did not have their noses bored and their bodies scarified.