De Quincey[50] incidentally mentions this characteristic in narrating a conversation which occurred while he was at Carnarvon, a little town in Wales.

"It was on this occasion," he says, "that I learned how vague are the ideas of number in unpractised minds.

'What number of people do you think,' I said to an elderly person, 'will be assembled this day at Carnarvon ?' 'What number ?' rejoined the person addressed; 'what number?
Well, really, now, I should reckon--perhaps a matter of four million.' Four millions of _extra_ people in little Carnarvon, that could barely find accommodation (I should calculate) for an extra four hundred!" So the Eskimo and the South American Indian are, after all, not so very far behind the "elderly person" of Carnarvon, in the distinct perception of a number which familiarity renders to us absurdly small..