dia, they proceeded to investigate a remarkable indentation south of Roebuck Bay. Nothing very material occurred over this cruise, and our navigators went on to Swan River. On this occasion our author revisited by land the new settlement of Australind, formed by Mr. Clifton, whom he deeply regretted to find abandoned by those who sent him out. After rectifying also on the spot a few points in Captain Grey's chart in the Victoria range, they sailed for the new settlement of Leschenhault Inlet, or Australind in reality, since Mr. Clifton wisely abandoned the projected site for his colony. They again touched at Port George's Sound and South Australia, to confirm their meridian distances, and found their old friend Lieutenant Grey governor in this latter place. Our zealous author rode in one day ninety miles on horseback into the interior. After this they passed to Portland, where the settlement of Mr. Henty excited unmixed admiration, having already risen into a place of great importance. Having still before them the survey of Bass Strait, which lies between Tasmania and the continent of New Holland, they proceeded to Hobarton. The old Polar navigator, Sir John Franklin, fully sympathized with the views of his fellowexplorers, aided them to the utmost, and placed the Vansittart, the colonial cutter, at their service for the survey, while the Beagle proceeded to Sydney for stores. When the Beagle reached Sydney, the projected expedition into the interior occupied the public attention. Our author pressed strongly the attempt by the Albert with camels, which might be procured at Cutch. Captain Sturt's expedition, we regret to say, holds out small hope of any thing but a central desert; each settlement, however, we presume, will press these exploring parties from itself, with the view of ascertaining the circumstances of greatest local importance to them, the character of the country in their own vicinity. On the return of the Beagle, our author seized the opportunity of entering Twofold Bay, to survey the country around Cape Howe. This portion of the coast they found laid down ten miles to the east of Sydney, and this error continued to Purvis Bay. After this they joined their companions in the Vansittart at Port Dalrymple. Here the Beagle underwent a fresh sheathing. Tasmania will ever remain a debtor for many important benefits in the complete survey of her northern side, and of Bass Strait, to the Beagle. This being partially effected, they returned to Sydney for supplies, which had not arrived at the end of their last trip. They found there orders for the recall of the Beagle; but our indefatigable author persisted in completing his survey before he would allow himself to do more than think of home. He did not effect it to the extent he wished, or to the magnitude he desired, but still made a complete though minute survey. Their recall prevented a projected survey of New Guinea, and of further additions to the nomenclature of the earth,-a disappointment which the thoughts even of home did not wholly remove. After a return to Sydney, we presume for fresh instructions from the governor, but it is not stated, they resumed their labours to the south at Banks's Strait, which separates Tasmania and the islands to the south of Flinders. This strait is of great importance, as all the trade between Hobarton, Launceston, and Port Philip passes through it. After various adventures at Port Philip, Sydney, and other places, our author returns to Swan River, and thence proceeds home. The following passage describes the strong contrast of the world he had surveyed with the old: "Its cherries with their stones growing outside, its trees which shed their bark instead of their leaves, its strange animals, its still stranger population, its mushroom cities, and, finally, the fact that approach to human habitations is not announced by the barking of dogs, but by the barking of trees." We could add many others; but one, that its rivers run into the land, and not out of into the sea, our author has triumphantly refuted by the discovery of the Victoria and Albert streams. We have to thank Captain Stokes for a most valuable work, one that will place his name by the side of Vancouver, Tasman, Dampier, and Cook. His promotion has been hardly earned; but we are greatly deceived if fresh expeditions will not add additional honours, even to the ample harvest he has already secured. VOL. VIII.—NO. I, 18 ART. II.-Narrative of a Four Months' Residence among the Natives of a Valley in the Marquesas Islands, or a Peep at Polynesian Life. By Herman Melville. London: Murray, 1846. "SAILORS," says Mr. Melville in his Preface, "are the only class of men who now-a-days see any thing like stirring adventure;" and, in truth, the spread of civilization and science have gone far to rob the world of romance. The red flag of the corsair no longer scares the Mediterranean tourist; the picturesque bandit of Italy exists more in imagination than in reality; the Black Forest and Hartz Mountains have no longer terrors, even for the superstitious. Nor is it only near home that the ancient regime has ceased in a great measure to exist. The race of Red Indians are becoming rapidly extinct; scalps and tomahawks serve now but to embellish a romance. Railroads and manufactories are fast assimilating the Western to the Eastern hemisphere; nor will the Polynesian world be long exempt from the effects of the white man's sway. Already has the revolution commenced: already are the mild and indolent islanders beginning to shrink before the encroachments of the sturdy denizens of the North. But a short time, and the mighty change will, in all probability, be consummated. The groves of palm and breadfruit will serve as food for the fire of the steam-engine. Peace a ful indolence will be succeeded by feverish energy; the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands will have shared the fate of the inhabitants of Van Dieman's Land. At such a crisis, a work like that before us must be possessed of peculiar interest, work in which we are initiated into the mysteries of Polynesian life, as it still is, and has remained from time immemorial,—a lively and interesting account of a four months' residence among genuine pagans and cannibals. We purpose to endeavour to give an abstract of its contents, short indeed, and unavoidably imperfect, but which may, we trust, serve as a recommendation of it to our readers. For those whose notions of a voyage are derived from the experience of a transatlantic trip, or an overland passage, it would be difficult to imagine the insufferable monotony of a South Sea whaling expedition. The same boundless prospect of sea and sky for months together; the same company daily; the same duties to perform; the same unvarying fare,—such, for the last six months, had been the round of occupation on board an American whaler. Not a glimpse of land had as yet relieved the monotony; the fresh provisions had long since come to an end,—not a green thing was to be seen. "Even the bark that once clung to the wood we use for fuel has been gnawed off and devoured by the captain's pig; and so long ago, that the pig himself has been in turn devoured." Trying as must have been so monotonous an existence to the low and illiterate, far more so must it have been to one whose assertion is superfluous that he had originally moved in a different sphere of life. Mr. Melville was serving before the mast; an escape from his associates was impossible, and we can well believe, that by no one was the cry of "land" heard with more rapture than by the author of the pages before us. The island of Makaheva is the principal of that group called the Marquesas. Its history, up to the time of our author's arrival, may be told in very few words. Although first visited by Europeans in the year 1595, but few attempts had, up to a recent period, been made to establish an intercourse with the natives. The whole amount of knowledge respecting them had been derived from one or two unsuccessful missionaries, and the occasional reports of whaling captains, who had touched on their coasts when short of provisions. Within the last five or six years some attempts at conquest and colonization had been made by our Gallic neighbours in the Marquesas; but the savage character of the inhabitants, and the natural difficulties with which the invaders were compelled to contend, had hitherto preserved at least one part of the island from the fate which has already fallen upon the milder and more exposed natives of Tahiti. The tribe which had thus escaped the exterminating effects of French civilization was known by the name of Typee, a designation which in the Marquesan dialect signifies a lover of human flesh. Between the tribe on whom so savage a cognomen had been fixed and the inhabitants of the valleys of Makaheva and Happars, the other tribes by whom the island is inhabited, a determined enmity had from time immemorial existed. So desperate and so barbarous was the character acquired by the former, that the French had confined their approaches exclusively to the more peaceful district of Makaheva. A Gallic squadron was lying in the harbour of Makaheva in the year 1842, and it was at that period that the ship, on board of which our author was embarked, was approaching the same destination. There is something very striking in Mr. Melville's account of the approach of the vessel to the land of promise. The mild influence of the climate spread a "delightful lazy languor" over the ship's company. We are reminded of the fine passage in Tennyson's "Lotos Eaters :" 66 "In the afternoon they came unto a land, In which it seemed always afternoon; All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Every one," says our author, "seemed to be under the influence of some narcotic. Even the officers aft, whose duty required them never to be seated while keeping a deck-watch, vainly endeavoured to keep on their pins, and were obliged invariably to compromise the matter by leaning up against the bulwarks, and gazing abstractedly over the side. Reading was out of the question; take a book in your hand, and you were asleep in an instant." A scene, however, well calculated to arouse them from their lethargy, awaited our voyagers on their entrance to the bay of Makaheva. Six French men-of-war were lying at anchor; a hundred soldiers were on shore, and the savage islanders were daily astonished by the gorgeous appearance and scientific manœuvres of the warriors of the "great nation; while the guns of four heavy double-banked frigates and three corvettes were ostentatiously pointed at " a handful of bamboo sheds, sheltered in a grove of cocoa-nuts." Nor were more peaceful excitements wanting to our land-sick seamen. The ship, on dropping anchor, was surrounded by innumerable canoes. 66 Mr. Melville was naturally astonished by not perceiving a single female among the groupes of natives by whom he was surrounded. He afterwards discovered that, by the operation of a singular custom called tafoo, females are rigidly prohibited from entering a canoe. Consequently," says he, "whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, she puts in requisition the paddles of her own fair body." That such paddles were serviceable was speedily made apparent. "A shoal of 'whinchenies' (young girls) ere long appeared in sight, and The Dolly was fairly captured by an army of fair invaders, with light, clear, brown complexions, delicate features, and inexpressibly graceful figures." With syren attractions such as these,-with a land rich with the profuse bounties of nature in sight,—with a lovely and luxurious climate around, and a clear blue sky above, can it be wondered at that our author should look forward with extreme repugnance to an unlimited period of salt junk and stale society? that he should be desirous of prolonging his stay among the fairy scenes and voluptuous pleasures of this island paradise? |