I Did Indeed Admire
This Scene, When I Compared It With An Uncultivated One In
The Temperate Zones.
I felt the force of the remark, that
man, at least savage man, with his reasoning powers only
partly developed, is the child of the tropics.
As the evening drew to a close, I strolled beneath the
gloomy shade of the bananas up the course of the stream.
My walk was soon brought to a close, by coming to a waterfall
between two and three hundred feet high; and again
above this there was another. I mention all these waterfalls
in this one brook, to give a general idea of the inclination
of the land. In the little recess where the water fell, it did
not appear that a breath of wind had ever blown. The thin
edges of the great leaves of the banana, damp with spray,
were unbroken, instead of being, as is so generally the case,
split into a thousand shreds. From our position, almost
suspended on the mountain side, there were glimpses into the
depths of the neighbouring valleys; and the lofty points of
the central mountains, towering up within sixty degrees of
the zenith, hid half the evening sky. Thus seated, it was
a sublime spectacle to watch the shades of night gradually
obscuring the last and highest pinnacles.
Before we laid ourselves down to sleep, the elder Tahitian
fell on his knees, and with closed eyes repeated a long
prayer in his native tongue. He prayed as a Christian should
do, with fitting reverence, and without the fear of ridicule
or any ostentation of piety.
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