LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



the one most commonly appealed to will be obvious, 

 when we consider the size of the streams of the Pacific 

 islands, and the fact that fresh water is lighter than salt, 

 and therefore, instead of sinking, flows on over its sur- 

 face." 



Discovery of Bowditch Island 



A striking picture of life among the most primitive 

 people, on an island discovered by the Expedition and 

 named " Bowditch Island," will next be given. 



" This island and the two others near it were among 

 the few, perhaps the last, examples that remained until 

 1840, of Pacific lands never before visited by the white 

 man. The people therefore were in that purely savage 

 state which Captain Cook found almost universal through 

 the ocean in the latter part of last century. A few words 

 respecting our reception at this coral island- may not, 

 therefore, be an improper digression. 



" The islanders knew nothing of any other land or 

 people: an ignorance not surprising, since the lagoons 

 of the group have no good entrances, and a nation cannot 

 be great in navigation or discovery without harbors. As 

 a consequence, our presence was to them like an appari- 

 tion. The simple inhabitants took us for gods from the 

 sun, and, as we landed, came with abundant gifts of such 

 things as they had, to propitiate their celestial visitors. 

 They, no doubt, imagined that our strange ship had 

 sailed off from the sun when it touched the water at sun- 

 rise, or sunset, and any child among them coulcKsee that 

 this was a reasonable supposition. The king, aTter em- 

 bracing Captain Hudson, as the latter states in his Journal 

 (Wilkes's Narrative), rubbed noses, pointed to the sun, 

 howled, moaned, hugged him again and again, put a mat 

 around his waist, securing it with a cord of human hair, 

 and repeated the rubbing of noses and the howling; and 

 the moment the captain attempted to leave his side, he 

 set up again a most piteous howl, and repeated in a 

 tremulous tone, ' Nofo ki lalo, mataku au ' (' Sit down, I 

 am afraid '). While thus in fear of us, they showed a 

 great desire that their dreaded visitors should depart; 



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