So intense was the appreciation by the sable mind of this joke that the boatmen rolled about with laughter, and even the victims, when they had once scrambled into their boats, yelled like people possessed.
"They are just like children," Mr.Goodenough said.

"They are always either laughing or quarreling.

They are good natured and passionate, indolent, but will work hard for a time; clever up to a certain point, densely stupid beyond.

The intelligence of an average negro is about equal to that of a European child of ten years old.

A few, a very few, go beyond this, but these are exceptions, just as Shakespeare was an exception to the ordinary intellect of an Englishman.