J. G. Wood

“ Life hangs upon a little thread, but what think you of mountains hanging upon a thread? In my fancy I said, ‘If Fate had decreed one of the Sisters to cut that thread while I witnessed the singular spectacle, what convulsions upon the land and sea about us might not have followed!’ But Nature had an admirable way of taking down these rock-giants, hanging between the heavens and the earth. ”

“ Thus, upon a lofty mora tree a fig tree will grow, and upon the fig an enormous creeper will fasten itself, its long shoots dangling loosely from the enormous height at which they grow, or drooping in graceful and flower-clad festoons from one tree to another. Such a forest as this is often ankle-deep in water for miles together, and the vegetation is so thick that the only way of passing through the tangled mass of vegetation is to cut a path with the axe. ”

“ When the Patagonian goes out hunting, he carries no weapon except the bolas and a knife, the latter being considered rather as a tool than a weapon. Should he see a herd of guanacos, he makes silently toward them, imitating the cry of the young one in distress, and doing all in his power to attract the animals. Anything very strange is sure to attract them, just as it attracts cows, which are horribly afraid of the new object, but, victims of a sort of fascination, are led nearer and nearer by a spirit of curiosity, for which they pay with their lives. ”

“ There was poetry in their faith, in their customs, in their language, at once laconic and picturesque—and even in the names they bestowed on each tribe, each chief and warrior, on mountain and river. One can hardly suppress a feeling of regret that so much of wild romance and valor should have been swept from the face of the earth, unless we call to mind the shadow of the picture—the Indian’s cruelty, perfidiousness and savage lust. ”

“ The man now stands opposite the spot where the sun will rise, fixes his eyes upon it, and leans backward so as to throw the whole weight of his body on the rope, his feet serving more to balance than sustain him. As the sun passes over the heavens, he moves gradually round, never speaking nor taking his eyes from it; and if he can endure this torture from sunrise to sunset without fainting, he earns the rank to which he aspires, together with all the valuable presents which are laid at the foot of the pole by his admirers. ”

“ Once a slave, always a slave. Should one of these unfortunates manage to escape and get back to his own tribe, his owner would apply for him, and he would be given up, the right of the master to his slave being universally recognized. Still, as a rule, the slaves are treated well, and some of them, who have attained excellence in certain arts, often become richer men than their owners. So great is the value of slaves, that many a war has been undertaken for the mere purpose of slave hunting, and some of the most disastrous and obstinate feuds have originated in the slave hunt. ”

“ It is always held as a deep insult to a Samoan to compare him to a pig; while the very idea of being baked in the oven is most repulsive to the feelings of the people, who have the same contempt for any of the processes of cookery that prevails throughout New Zealand, Fiji, and Tonga. So utterly humiliating is this punishment, that when the culprit is laid helpless at the feet of those whom he has injured he is almost invariably released and forgiven, the extreme degradation being accepted as an atonement for almost any offence, no matter how heinous. ”

“ From days immemorial his tribe has monopolized the carrying of goods from one country to another. The Mnyamwezi is the camel, the horse, the mule, the ass, the beast of burden to which all travellers anxiously look to convey their luggage from the coast to the far African interior. The Arab can go nowhere without his help; the white traveller, bound on an exploring trip, cannot travel without him.... He is like the sailor, having his habitat in certain sailors’ boarding houses in great seaport towns, and, like the sailor, is a restless rover. ”

“ Of all savage nations, the New Zealander displays most sorrow for the loss of a friend or relation. Tears flow profusely from his eyes, and every tone of his voice and every gesture of his body convey the impression that he is borne down by unendurable woe. Yet we have seen that this effusion of sorrow is mostly premeditated, and merely a conventional mode of acting required by the etiquette of the country. ”

“ At the first glance, it seems strange that not only should the relatives of the miserable wife desire her to be burned, but that she herself should wish it, and should adhere to her determination in spite of every opportunity of escaping so dreadful a death. Yet the calm, dispassionate cruelty of the Hindoo nature is shown by the fact that, painful as is a death by burning, the life of a widow who survives her husband is made so miserable that the short though sharp agony of the funeral pyre is infinitely preferable to life. ”

“ When a chief, or indeed any Rangatira, dies, his friends and relations deck the body in the finest clothes which the deceased had possessed in his lifetime, lay it out, and assemble round it for the customary mourning. The women are the chief mourners, and indulge in the most demonstrative, not to say ostentatious, ebullitions of grief. Sometimes they squat upon the ground, their bodies and faces wrapped in their mantles, as if utterly overpowered by grief. ”

“ Mah-to-toh-pa was dreadfully wounded in the hands, but at last wrested the knife from his adversary, drove it into his heart, and in silence claimed the scalp of his fallen foe.
On another occasion he alone faced sixty Assineboins, drove them back, and killed one of them. It was in this battle that he earned the name of “Four Bears,” by which must be understood the grizzly bear, the most terrible quadruped of North America. This is a sample of the mode in which warfare is conducted by the North American Indians—a strange mixture of lofty and chivalrous nobility with cunning and deceit. ”

“ It is a point of honor that the visitor should be kept enveloped in a shower of down, as if he were in a snow-storm, and this can only be done by perpetually dancing and nodding the head, which is kept well supplied with down by attendants.
White feathers and down always signify peace, and hence, when a man sets off on a mission of peace to a neighboring tribe with whom there has been a quarrel, he puts white down on his head, and knows that his person will be as sacred as that of the bearer of a flag of truce in civilized warfare. ”

“ She has to cut off her hair, she has to live on the coarsest of food, she has to clothe herself in the coarsest of raiment, and altogether to lead a life utterly and hopelessly miserable in every hardship that can afflict the body, and every reproach that can torture the mind.
On the other side comes the belief, that if she follows the dictates of her religion, and suffers herself to be burned on the funeral pile of her husband, she qualifies herself for everlasting happiness. ”

“ No matter whether the weapon has belonged to a rich or a poor man, whether it be plain wood and iron, or studded with jewels and inlaid with gold, the form remains the same, and there is about that form a graceful elegance which is peculiar to India. Take, for example, that simplest of weapons, the kookery, and see how beautiful are the curves of the blade and handle, and how completely they satisfy the eye. In the same manner we shall find that, with all the weapons that will be figured, there is always a graceful curve or a well-balanced arrangement of lines. ”

“ A stone hurled from a Fijian sling has been known to render a musket useless, the stone having struck the barrel, and bent and indented it as much as would have been done by a bullet.
The chief weapon of the Fijian is the club, and upon this he lavishes all the artistic power at his command, covering nearly the whole of it with the most intricate and delicately executed carvings. Some clubs are straight, like thick cudgels, others are curved. Those which are knobbed at the end have an infinite variety in the knob, as we shall presently see. ”

“ He, in the meanwhile, prides himself on showing his enemies how a warrior can die. He chants the praises of his tribe and their deeds, boasts of all the harm that he has done to the tribe into whose power he has fallen, ridicules their best warriors, and endeavors to anger them to such an extent that they may dash out his brains, and so spare him further torture. He will even laugh at their attempts to extort cries of pain from a warrior, and tell them that they do not know how to torture. ”

“ In every town or village, the oldest persons are treated with the greatest consideration, not on account of their rank or wealth, but of their age. Every one gives way to them, they have the best places in the theatres, are brought forward at every public spectacle, and are indulged in every possible way. Such has been the custom from time immemorial in this great nation, which was civilized when the inhabitants of England were naked savages. The oldest civilized nation in the world, they have honored their fathers and their mothers, and their days have been long in the land. ”

“ He seldom requires a second thrust with the shorter weapon, but strikes home at a single thrust, as was fatally proved at a later period; while with the longer weapon he severs a limb at a blow. Such a fellow is a man to whom all peace-loving subjects and prudent people habitually give as wide a berth as they can. Often drunk, and always insolent, he is to be met with in the quarters of the town where the tea-houses most abound; or returning about dusk from his day’s debauch, with a red and bloated face, and not over-steady on his legs, the terror of all the unarmed population and street dogs. ”

“ The girls are fond of disporting themselves by the sea-shore, and building sand houses for the waves to knock down, precisely as is done by the civilized children of Europe and America. Their great amusement is to build an enclosure with walls of sand, and to sit in it as if it were a house of their own until the rising tide washes away the frail walls. ”

“ A thousand youthful forms of the fairest outline seemed to be dancing to and fro, their white arms intertwined, bodies incessantly varying, intermixing, falling, rising, jumping, skipping, hopping, whirling, waltzing, resting, and again rushing to the mazy dance—never tired—ever playful—ever light and airy, graceful, and soft to the eye. ”

“ He may be mounted on a magnificent elephant, covered with glittering trappings, he may be clothed in gorgeous robes and sparkle with costly gems, but before a Brahmin, with a single cloth round his waist, and bearing the solitary sign of his caste,—the slight cord hung over one shoulder and under the other,—he is an abject slave. ”

“ In one of them a man, stripped even of his blanket, is bound with his hands behind him, and driven about at the end of long cords, while the spectators yell, shout, and hammer with sticks upon wooden dishes and drums made of bear-skin.
Suddenly the chief dashes among the people, brandishing a knife, and, on seeing the bound man, gives chase to him, and to all appearance drives the knife deeply into his back. Blood pours abundantly from the wound, and the man rushes wildly about in search of shelter, followed by the chief, who plunges his bloody weapon repeatedly into the man’s back. ”

“ I have already said that war is always in the thoughts of a genuine Maori. Unlike the vaporing Fiji warrior, who is always ready to boast, and seldom ready to fight, preferring to knock his enemy on the head when asleep, the Maori is a brave soldier, accustomed from his earliest childhood to deeds of war. ”

“ Darting swiftly along, she arrives at the edge of the fall, and, pointing downward, shoots into the surf below it, dashing it up on either side, and leaving her crew alone visible. If all be well, rising above the fall, she obeys the guiding paddles in stem and stern, and dances over the tumbling waves, while her excited crew with a triumphant cry exult at their success.”
Sometimes even the skill of the natives fails to overcome all the difficulties, and the canoe is upset, the crew barely escaping with their lives. ”

“ Sometimes a sudden gust of wind, or a large wave, will bring round the rudder with such violence that the handle strikes a man in the side and kills him. With all these drawbacks, canoe sailing is a favorite occupation with the Fijians, who are as merry as possible while on board, singing songs to encourage the steersman, watching the waves and giving notice of them, and adding to the joyous tumult by beating any drum that they may happen to have on board. ”

“ To fall from such an estate as this, above humanity and equal to divinity, must be something almost too terrible to conceive, and we can easily imagine that any death would be preferable to such a life. But not even the horror of a life like this would be equivalent to the sufferings of the Indian widow, who believes that her very soul is contaminated beyond hope by the loss of her caste, and who feels herself degraded below the level of those on whom she had looked with an utter loathing that is almost incomprehensible to the Western mind. ”