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^ une 7 , 1856 . ] THE LEADEE . 547
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" atives , especially in remote parts of tbe islands where they are least under * be influence of foreign ideas . Even when they are thus influenced , the « trueffl e between barbarism and civilization is interesting , and barbarism still has the best of it . Whatever has been done for the amelioration of the natives has tended principally to the suppression of gross and cruel crimes and the extinction of idolatrous and abominable rites . The difficulty of instill * 1101 into the minds of the people an appreciation of the positive refinement of Europe , of giving the natives a sense of that high propriety which distinguishes society in our hi g h moral latitudes , has proved almost insurmountable , and there appears even to be an apprehension in the minds of some whether it can ever be accomplished , before the race become extinct . It is painful to contemplate the decay of races and tribes under the tenderest care of civilization ; yet there appear to be symptoms indicative of the
dying out of the aboriginal inhabitants of these islands , at least where European civilization has touched them . The natives also seem to feel that they «* e doomed . When they fall ill they refuse , under this impression , to take the commonest care of themselves , and lie down to perish . In some instances impatience of sufferings hastens the issue of a disease . If they are attacked with fever they say that their boiling blood must be cooled , and rush out , if near the sea-shore , and plunge into the waves , or stretch themselves out on the beachfor the surf to wash over them . If they reside in the interior of the island they lie down in some cool stream and there endeavour to quench the fire in their veins . The inevitable consequence is death in a short time . Epidemics are frequent ; and the want both of medical skill , and the attendance of friends as nurses , increases their
ravages to a frightful extent . Yet much is being done for the improvement of the natives . Schools have been established by the missionaries , and besides the mental subjects taught , the pupils are instructed in gardening , agriculture , and mechanics . But the people are neither industrious nor persevering . If they begin an undertaking , they rarely finish it . Near Honolulu may be seen several houses in the European style , in a half-finished state . The fact is the wealthier portion of the community took it into their heads to have suburban villas , and they were forthwith commenced ; but those who planned them bad not the energy to carry them on , and there they stand mere shells and carcases , a monument of one of the most striking features in the national character .
It is evident that the products of these islands might become very vaiuftble under a little ordinary industry if properly bestowed . They are _ all ¦ covered with the most luxurious vegetation . The fruits and herbs of tropical climates are found here in abundance ; and the coflee-tree and the sugarplant have already been introduced . Our traveller had opportunities of judging of the capabilities of the soil under proper culture . Mr . Hall , an . Englishman , has established a coffee plantation in Owyhee , for the purpose of making agricultural experiments , and this plantation Mr . Hill visited . In the West Indies the coffee crop frequently fails , but in these islands , as far as has been yet experienced , it is far more certain , and will probably , therefore , be ultimately one of the staples of commerce of the islands . The cofiee , which our tourist tasted , he pronounced to be of a far better flavour than any produced in the West Indian plantations .
Mr . Hill visited the ruins of the principal temple of the old worship , In the grand court of which the god Kaili stood , exposed to the view of his terror-stricken adorers , and where the great King Kamehameha sacrificed the chief Konooa who had contended with him unsuccessfully for the sovereignty of the islaud . Near the spot where Captain { Jook fell may be seen high in the rocks that hang perpendicularly over the shore , deep caverns which the natives assert are the burial-plaees of their ancestors , but whether they are artificial or natural , or whether they are actually a necropolis , has never properly been ascertained . A . visit to the interior of either of them would quickly dispel doubt , and satisfy the minds of the curious and learned . They are said to resemble those holes in the sides of the mountains of Egypt , andjilong the banks of the Nile , which are known to have been used for the burial of the dead .
Mr . Hill was not a resident at Honolulu , lie was ever moving about , coasting along the shores of the island , landing to investigate some bay or valley , or to penetrate up into the lofty mountains of the interior , and especially the celebrated volcano of Kilanea in the island of Owyhee . He bad thus ample opportunities of observing the characters and dispositions ol the natives , witnessing their habits and manners , their sports and amusements , and experiencing the mode of life they led . He found all hospitable and warm-hearted , particularly the women , who felt grateful for the altered condition of their sex , and in fact , for the moral change which had taken place
in the condition of the whole islaud . On one occasion les dames de la Jlallt ¦ of Owyhee entertained him to a fish dinner--for their husbands were fishermen— " which national taste induced them to oat raw . One of the fair sex undertook to be principal orator on the occasion , and made several revelations of things as they were . " Good liowries" ( that is , gentleman ) , said she , 41 it was not fish only that we eat raw before the missionaries taught u , s the new reli « ion . When I was a child , half the number of us that are now present would have found your white body , fresh-killed as we should have eaten it , at least in a time of scarcity , but a meagre meal . " Isles lie extended
When Mr . Hill had made his survey of the Sandwich hia travels southward to the Society Islands , of which Otaheite is tlio principal , and Poinare the quoen . His stay here was limited to ten days or so , owing to the departure of the only vessel by which he could leave the shore lor sometime . He did not , however , fnil to make tho best ; of his time ; but . upon the whole , " tho impressions wo retained after leaving thiH lair isle , had less of tho a « rrecuble in them to counterbalance the dark pictures which tho condition of a declining race must ever exhibit , than those which wo retained of tho Sandwich Islands . " Wo cannot dismiss tho work without . suggesting to Mr . Jlill , whoso travels arc , apparently , to be continued , that ho might advantageous y compress hia matter . Hia stylo ia heavy with redundant words . He should remember that brevity and aprig htlines . s , us they are tho soul ol wit , so arc they of lig ht composition . His narrative is really interesting , and well worth the reading .
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TRANSATLANTIC JLATTER-DAY POETRY . Leaves of Grass . ( Brooklyn , ~ Nevr York : 1855 . London : Horsell . ) — " Latter-day poetry" in America is of a very different character from the same manifestation in the old country . Here , it is occupied for the most part with dreams of the middle ages , of the old knightly and religious times ; m America , it is employed chiefly with the present , except when it travels out into the undiscovered future . Here , our latter-day poets are apt to whine over the times , as if Heaven were perpetually betrayiug the earth with a show of progress that is in fact retrogression , like the backward advance of crabs : there , the minstrels of the stars and stripes blow a loud note of exultation before the grand new epoch , and think the Greeks
and Romans , the early Oriental races , and the later men of the middle centuries , of small account before the onward tramping of these present generations . "Of this latter sect is a certain phenomenon who has recently started up in Brooklyn , New York—one Walt Whitman , author of " Leaves of Grass , " who has been received by a section of his countrymen as a sort of prophet , and by Englishmen as a kind of fool . For ourselves , we are not disposed to accept him as the one , having less faith in latter-day prophets than in latter-day poets ; but assuredly we cannot regard him as the other . Walt is one of the most amazing , one of the most startling , one of the most perplexing , creations of the modern American mind ; but he is no fool , though abundantly eccentric , nor is his book mere food for laughter , though undoubtedly containing much that may most easily and fairly be turned into ridicule . ,
The singularity of the author ' s mind—his utter disregard of ordinary forms and modes—appears in the very title-page and frontispiece of his work . Not only is there no author's name ( which in itself would not be singular ) , but there is no publisher ' s name—that of the English bookseller being a London addition . Fronting the title is the portrait of a bearded gentfeinan in his shirt-sleeves aud a Spanish hat , with an all-pervading atmosphere of Yankee-doodle about him- ; but again there is no patronymic , and we can only infer that this roystering blade is the author of the book . Then follows a long prose treatise by way of Preface ( and here once more the anonymous system is carried out , the treatise having no heading whatever ) ; and after that we have the poem , in the course of which , a short autobiographical discourse reveals to us the name of the author . A passage from the Preface , if it may be so called , will give some insight into the character and objects of the work . The dots do not indicate any abbreviation by us , but are part of the author s singular system of
punctuation : — Other states indicate themselves in their deputies . . . but the geniua of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures , nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors , nor eveu in its newspapers or inventors . . . but always most in the common people . Their manners speech , dress friendships—the freshness and candour of their physiognomy—the picturesque looseness of their carriage . . . their deathless attachment to freedom—their aversion to anything indecorous , or soft , or mean—the practical acknowledgment of the citizens of one state by the citizens of all other states—the fierceness of their roused resentment—their curiosity and -welcome of novelty—their self-esteem and wonderful sympathy—their susceptibility to a slight—the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors—the fluency of
their speech—their delight in music , the sure symptom of manly tenderness and native elegance of soul . . . their good temper and open-haudedness— the terrible significance of their elections—the President ' s talcing off his hat to them not they to him—these too are unrhymed poetry . It awaits the gigantic and generous treatment worthy of it . This " "i ^ antic and generous treatment , " we presume , is offered in the pa-res whfch ensue . The poem is written in wild , irregular , unrhymed , almost unmetrical " lengths , " like the measured prose of Mr . Martin . Fiirquhar Tupper ' s Proverbial Philosophy , or of some of the Oriental writings The external form , therefore , is startling , and by no means seductive , to Eivlish ears , accustomed to the sumptuous music of ordinary is At
metres ; and the central principle of the poem equally staggering , seems to resolve itself into an all-attracting egotism—an eternal presence of the individual soul of Walt Whitman in all things , yet in such wise that this one soul shall be presented as a type of all human souls whatsoever . He irocs forth into the world , this rough , devil-may-care Yankee ; passionately identifies himself with all forms of being , sentient or inanimate ; _ sympathizes deeply with humanity ; riots with a kind of Bacchanal fury in the force and fervour of his own sensations ; will not have the most v . c . ousor abandoned shut out from final comfort and reconciliation ; is delighted with Broadway . New York , and equally in love with the desolate backwoods iiil the long stretch of the uninhabited prairie , where the wild beasts Sow in tho reeds , and the wilder birds start upwards from their nests Znong the grass ; perceives a divine mystery wherever his feet conduct or h " thtuohte transport him ; and beholds all beings tending towards the cen-Eal aiVsoverei Suchas we conceive , is the key to us traxigo
gnV . , f " r ^ te sque and Cow Idering book ; yet we are fur from saymg that the key " vi 1 uXelc all tho quirks and oddities of the , volume . Much remains of icn we confess we can niake nothing ; much that seems to us purely fan-S ear « i " l preposterous ; much that appears to our muddy vision gra-S needlessly p lain-speaking , disgusting without purpose mi 1 sUiguuir without result / There are ho n . any evidences of a noble soul in W iu . m . rs pages that we regret these aberrations , which only have the " ttect r discrediting whal is genuine by the ahow of something-false ; and especially do \ ve deplore the unnecessary opeimojs with winch Walt reveals to * u at ¦ . Vwhieh ought rather to remain in a sacred silence . It w good m , l L be aS . an . ed of Nature ; it is good to have an all-melusive chanty ; but it is also good sometimesto leave tho veil across the 1 einplo .
, , That the reader may be made acquainted with the vividneas with which Walt can paint the unhackneyed scenery of his native land , wo subjoin a panorama : — Uy tho oity ' B quadrangular houses . . in log-hutH , or cunning wilh lumber-men , "Lug th / rUtnot the turnpike . . . along tho dry gulch mid nvulet-bod ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1856, page 547, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2144/page/19/
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