These Islands Have Fortunately
Been Discovered At A Period When Religion No Longer Serves As A Pretext
For Violence And Rapine.
Modern navigators have no other object in
describing the manners of remote nations than that of completing the
history of man; and the knowledge they endeavour to diffuse has for its
sole aim to render the people they visit more happy, and to augment
their means of subsistence."
If Laperouse could see the map of the Pacific to-day he would find its
groups of islands all enclosed within coloured rings, indicating
possession by the great Powers of the world. He would be puzzled
and pained by the change. But the history of the political movements
leading to the parcelling out of seas and lands among strong States
would interest him, and he would realise that the day of feeble
isolation has gone. Nothing would make him marvel more than the
floating of the Stars and Stripes over Hawaii, for he knew that flag
during the American War of Independence. It was adopted as the flag of
the United States in 1777, and during the campaign the golden lilies of
the standard of France fluttered from many masts in co-operation with
it. Truly a century and a quarter has brought about a wonderful change,
not only in the face of the globe and in the management of its affairs,
but still more radically in the ideas of men and in the motives that
sway their activities!
The geographical work done by Laperouse in this part of the Pacific was
of much importance. It removed from the chart five or six islands which
had no existence, having been marked down erroneously by previous
navigators. From this region the expedition sailed to Alaska, on the
north-west coast of North America. Cook had explored here "with that
courage and perseverance of which all Europe knows him to have been
capable," wrote Laperouse, never failing to use an opportunity of
expressing admiration for his illustrious predecessor. But there was
still useful work to do, and the French occupied their time very
profitably with it from June to August. Then their ships sailed down
the western coast of America to California, struck east across
the Pacific to the Ladrones, and made for Macao in China - then as now
a Portugese possession - reaching that port in January, 1787.
The Philippines were next visited, and Laperouse formed pleasant
impressions of Manilla. It is clear from his way of alluding to the
customs of the Spanish inhabitants that the French captain was not a
tobacco smoker. It was surprising to him that "their passion for
smoking this narcotic is so immoderate that there is not an instant of
the day in which either a man or woman is without a cigar;" and it is
equally surprising to us that the French editor of the history of the
voyage found it necessary to explain in a footnote that a cigar is "a
small roll of tobacco which is smoked without the assistance of a
pipe." But cigars were then little known in Europe, except among
sailors and travellers who had visited the Spanish colonies; and the
very spelling of the word was not fixed.
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