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SOUTH SEA 
shirt over my elbow, and compared my arm with his, 
which was nearly black ; —when, his fellow-countrymen 
saw the great difference of our colour, they set up an- 
other shout, resembling that which was heard when the 
cap scene was enacted. 
After this they pressed us very much to go on shore, 
making signs for that purpose in which their pantomime 
was quite equal to our ventriloquism, laying their heads 
upon their hands and shutting their eyes to denote that 
we might sleep there, also motioning with their hands 
and mouths as if they were eating, to convince us that 
they could also give us something for that purpose. 
They appeared well fed, and all of them seemed happy ; 
we saw no misery depicted in their countenances, for 
although some of their faces lacked animation, yet they 
did not droop in melancholy. Such were the manners 
and appearances of these primitive men, these unedu- 
cated mortals, the plain tablets of whose minds were as 
yet unwritten on ; they knew naught of the thousand 
arts, of which we boast, — the proud steam-boat had 
never ploughed their deeps, spurning wind and waves ; 
the spinning-jenny had not performed its wonders in 
their happy land ; gas did not illumine the dark circuit- 
ous forest, or beachy way of their night wanderings ; rail- 
roads had not perforated the rocky mountain, or crossed 
the ravined valley with a wondrous stretch ; their air 
was not navigated, their sea was not traversed, their 
earth was not perforated by man ; they had neither rum 
nor missionaries,— but still they were happy ! 
When we found that no refreshment of any kind 
