--Close Dealing--A Royal Pork
Merchant--Grievances of a Matter-of-Fact Man.
OWYHEE, or Hawaii, as it is written by more exact orthographers, is the
largest of the cluster, ten in number, of the Sandwich Islands. It is
about ninety-seven miles in length, and seventy-eight in breadth, rising
gradually into three pyramidal summits or cones; the highest, Mouna
Roa, being eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, so as to
domineer over the whole archipelago, and to be a landmark over a wide
extent of ocean. It remains a lasting monument of the enterprising
and unfortunate Captain Cook, who was murdered by the natives of this
island.
The Sandwich Islanders, when first discovered, evinced a character
superior to most of the savages of the Pacific isles. They were frank
and open in their deportment, friendly and liberal in their dealings,
with an apt ingenuity apparent in all their rude inventions.
The tragical fate of the discoverer, which, for a time, brought them
under the charge of ferocity, was, in fact, the result of sudden
exasperation, caused by the seizure of their chief.
At the time of the visit of the Tonquin, the islanders had profited, in
many respects, by occasional intercourse with white men; and had shown a
quickness to observe and cultivate those arts important to their mode
of living.
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