"He turned round and saw me. What he imagined I was I do not know;
but a finer picture of fear and astonishment I never saw.
He stood incapable of moving a limb, riveted to the spot,
mouth open and eyes staring. . . . He remained motionless until
our black got within a few yards of him, when suddenly throwing down
his waddies, he jumped into a mulga bush as high as he could get."
He could not speak, and answered not a word to the inquiries made
by the black, but, trembling from head to foot, "waved with his
hand for us to be off."
That the eyebrows are raised by an innate or instinctive impulse
may be inferred from the fact that Laura Bridgman invariably
acts thus when astonished, as I have been assured by the lady
who has lately had charge of her. As surprise is excited
by something unexpected or unknown, we naturally desire,
when startled, to perceive the cause as quickly as possible;
and we consequently open our eyes fully, so that the field of vision
may be increased, and the eyeballs moved easily in any direction.
But this hardly accounts for the eyebrows being so greatly raised
as is the case, and for the wild staring of the open eyes.
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