-a

for the Government, it seems, is really answer- the British of the West Indies, and the Yanable in that unhappy little burlesque of Ex-kees of the South, have already dabbled, mouth at Algiers, but "to recover popular- mongrel kingdom, where smugglers, slaveity" with the Yankees, the lawyer-soldier who dealers, land-sharks, and vagabonds of every sits at the head of affairs is contemplating a kind, but of a low order, find a pitiful oppornew attack upon Cuba; while an agitation is tunity for gambling in a swamp. But Amer going forward for a species of partnership with ica excels them all she comes there with a Russia, whose North-Western territory the State-bombardment in aid of some pettifogRepublic is to purchase with money and surging local company. Cuba must be American reptitious aid; and the Loafers are already some day, when military necessities forbid its beginning to cast eyes of avidity upon Canada, being held by a weak power: the Spanish rechristened, for purposes of annexation, Government falls into trouble; President Hochelaga. Now the fact is, that this picture Pierce, with the destinies of the Republic ever of republican ferment is but the old story got before his eyes, at once sends " a message" to up afresh, with new headings in the great ad- Congress about Cuba; and English readers vertising placards of pushing journals. at once suppose that the President is entering into frantic competition with the dormant "Order of the Lone Star." Canada is reported to be prosperous and very contented under monarchical government

Nevertheless, events do not correspond to this changeful and blazing aspect of the news. President Pierce's transactions in regard to Cuba appear still to be regular. The purchase

66

With all the reputation which the French have justly acquired for their cookery, the Americans beat them hollow in invention, if not in nicety. In this country we are content -an offence with the usual ardent spirits, modified per- and a temptation in one; and the Yankees, haps by water, occasionally disguised by who have heretofore despised land so far North, "bitters" or spice. But you must cross the now declare that "Hochelaga" must be anAtlantic to learn the variety of juleps, cob- nexed. A Dr. Cottman arrives from St. Peblers, gin-slings, cock-tails, and other meta-tersburg, where he has been patted on the morphoses of the American Bacchus. We have back, after Judge Douglass; and the Newhere a vague but single-minded and heavy idea York Heraldry resounds with asurances that of maize as a cereal: it is in America that Nicholas will bestow Cuba on the Republic, they learn to give that respectable grain some will sell it his untenable possessions in the score or two of different forms and names. North-west at a low figure, guarantee to it And so it is in politics. The one staple idea Vancouver's Island, and perhaps divide the of America that their republic is a great one, globe. and that its greatness has increased, is increasing, and ought to be increased-is made to appear in every form. "Yours is a great country," said an American to an Englishman, as far ahead of every other country, as ours of Russian America, not impossible, is a very is over yours; and I guess that's no small unimportant matter; Canada is contented; compliment to pay you." As every Yankee and the American Government has ratified the magnifies his country, every Yankee belongs Reciprocity Treaty concluded by Lord Elgin. to a party and magnifies his party; and thus, In sunshine the waters of Niagara are falling; what with the magnifying of praise and the in the stillness their solemn din is heard unmagnifying of reprobation, the glories and ceasing; the storm obscures the picture, the crimes of the Republic exceed everything that crashing thunder of the clouds overwhelms the can be told except by writers commensurate quiet thunder of the cataract; but the storm and they must be Yankees. Pierce is the passes, the flashy glare ceases to disguise the man of the day, or the monster of the day. landscape, the solemn din is still going on, Boston, the Transatlantic Athens, rivals New and the great river keeps on its course unstaid. York in its failures. Tell the Yankee of an English calamity, and he will outdo you at once with half a dozen tragedies from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi. Tell him of a French crime, and he will undertake to make the criminal himself turn pale with the inconceivable invention of Yankee wickedness. He will not be satisfied until the Republic. shall embrace the globe: its goodness extending to celestial sublimity, its wickedness reaching to the opposite depth.

It is this propensity which perpetually revives every question, agitation, or movement in America. Greytown is a little nuisance, in which the Spanish Americans of Nicaragua,

From the Athenæum.

Utah and the Mormons: the History, Govern ment, Doctrines, Customs, and Prospects of the Latter-Day Saints, from Personal Obser vations during a Six-Months' Residence at Great Salt Lake City. By Benj. C. Ferris. New York: Harper Brothers; London, Low & Co.

MR. FERRIS does not give us quite as much information or as many pictures as a writer with his opportunities might have done. He takes us rapidly over the plains that stretch

Polygamy is introducing a new style of building at Salt Lake City. A man with half a dozen wives builds, if he can, a long, low dwelling, having six entrances from the outside; and when he takes in a new wife, if able to do so, adds another

west of Missouri, and through the Canons of houses are generally of one story and are built the Rocky Mountains, leading us to suppose of sun-dried bricks, presenting a most unpicthat he intends to reserve space for details of turesque appearance. personal experience at Great Salt Lake City. But once there, he tells the old story of Solomon Spaulding and the "Manuscript Found," Joe Smith and the Golden Bible,-going over, in fact, ground that has been worn bare of interest. The most interesting feature of his volume is a brief description of the Utah Territo- apartment. The object is to keep the women and babies as much as possible apart, and prery; whither the persecuted Saints have re-vent those terrible cat-fights which sometimes tired to put the barriers of the Wilderness occur, with all the accompaniments of Billingsand the arid mountain between them and per- gate, torn caps, and broken broom-sticks. As secution, and to work out their extraordinary the "divine institution" extends, these buildings experiment in one of the strangest and most increase; and, in a few years, the city will look sublime regions on the face of the earth. like a collection of barracks for the accommodaSnow-capped peaks are visible from all points tion of soldiers. Some have separate buildings of Utah Territory; which is entered at vari- in parts of the city remote from each other, and ous places through gorges or clefts in the rock others have farm-houses; and the wives are thus so narrow that the wind, blowing through these kept separate, the husband dividing his time befrom the nozzle of a blacksmith's bellows, is felt miles away from the mouth. Iron and coal and gold are now known to abound in the flanks of the mountains. The land is in part waste, devoted to eternal sterility; but in the not even maintain their population at its bottoms are deposits of alluvial soil, and there present level without continual accessions from are vast extents of grazing ground. Variations without. The following extract will give an of temperature, from extreme heat to extreme idea of the means which these fanatics take to cold, are common. Violent winds, accompa-prevent the arrival of the "Gentiles," as well nied by thunder and lightning, sweep along; as secession from their own flock. and have sometimes been known to bring spray from the Lake to the City, a distance of twenty-two miles.

tween them all.

According to Mr. Ferris, the Mormonites, partly from having chosen a very unhealthy climate, partly from their peculiar habits, can

On Sunday, the 27th of March, the subject was again resumed at the Tabernacle, by Elder Erastus Snow, in a sermon distinguished by its pro

"If the design of the Mormon rulers in select-fanity and brutal ferocity. This was not reported ing the Great Basin as the seat of their power for the Deseret News, and the substance of it can was to isolate their people from the rest of the only be stated from memory. He began with the world, they certainly made a happy choice. The most sickening and fulsome adulation of the Mormon capital is unapproachable from any civ-bashaw of forty tails who at present occupies the ilized point, except by a tedious journey of from high and mighty position of the prophet of the eight hundred to one thousand miles. In a se- Lord in “these last days; after which, by way of vere winter it is entirely inaccessible; the moun- lashing himself into a fury, he poured forth a tortain-passes then lay in so bountiful a supply of rent of invective against the Gentiles. He then snow as to set human perseverance at defiance; took up the Gladdenites, and hoped the Lord and the luckless sojourner, who has been accus- would curse and destroy them. He plainly told tomed to his daily paper, must content himself the audience that whoever should be the execuwith speculations as to events transpiring in the tioners of Divine justice in this case, and slay the outside-world for three or four months. This iso- Gladdenites, their wives and children, from the lation has its conveniences and inconveniences: face of the earth, would receive a bright crown it protects the Saints from Gentile influence or of glory! The injunction to assassinate these persecution, and enables the leaders to carry out, sectaries was open and undisguised, and repeated without let or hinderance, the most singular ex-in a variety of forms, and, what is more to be luperiments upon human superstition and credu-mented, was approvingly responded to by the aulity which have been witnessed since the Dark dience. It was a sphere of murder, plain, palpable, Ages. But the expenses of living are great; frightful, and sickening. The picture was one everything which cannot be raised from the soil, which, once seen, can never be effaced from the and which the customs of civilized life have renmind a preacher in the pulpit ferociously endered necessary to eat, drink, and wear, cost at joining the murder of men, women, and children, least four times as much as in the States, owing for a difference of opinion, and two thousand to the great land-transportation. faces intently gazing upon him with fanatical approbation. The regions of the damned could Gentile emigrant present stood it as long as he scarcely present a scene more truly diabolical. A could, but finally left the Tabernacle with compressed lips and clenched fist, and evidently under an uncontrollable fit of indignant excitement.

The City, which contains a population of about eight thousand, is scattered over a very large area, with streets of eight rods wide, crossing each other at right angles. The

This is Mormonism! These are the people who mons have been a comparative failure, and have made the world ring with the persecutions that an equal number of ordinary Americans of the Gentiles !" would have produced greater material results in the same time. But the secret of their success is in their appeal to vague desires of hap

We are not quite sure that Mr. Ferris is right in supposing that the Mormons have piness and a certain romantic discontent with reached the apex of their prosperity, although the routine of ordinary life which exist more many of the reasons he gives are cogent and or less in all men, but which can be developed cheering. It is possible, also, that the sect, only to a great extent in illiterate persons by growing weary of its extravagancies, may sub-promises and doctrines the most calculated to side into something more reasonable. Such offend and repel minds possessed of any dean impulse rarely passes away without leaving gree of refinement. Joe Smith was the only permanent traces in the forms of society. It Epicurus who could have found disciples may be quite true that as colonists the Mor- among potboys and hodmen.

and better done than by this writer, whose pen is apt to run away with him. Much knocking about the world, seemingly in the THESE "Notes" of a voyage from Cali- East as well as in the West-" he has travelfornia to the Sandwich Islands, and of excur-led among the Arabs, Turks, and Franks ”— sions through several parts of them, are appa- has neither enlarged his mind nor enlightenrently an American importation with an Eng-ed his prejudices; but it has given him a spelish titlepage. The author at all events is an cies of moral toleration. His remarks on the American of the broadest stamp. He is flu- rigid requirements of the missionaries, and on ent in the style of the stump orator, and with the laws passed by their influence to restrain about as much care, knowledge, or logic in those vices which can only be controlled by the sense of large understanding, as distin- the individuals themselves, through domestic guishes that product of the Far West. He is, training, a "sound and religious education," moreover, a thorough "annexer," whether it and the operation of public opinion, are judibe an extension of a state by appropriation of cious. The facts employed to illustrate his territory, or of a book by hacknied quotations remarks throw a light upon the immorality of and documents. In fact, a main object of his the natives. The same subject is exhibited in Notes is to enforce the annexation of the the accounts that support his arguments Sandwich Islands, without the least regard to against the notion that they are foreigners who the rights of King Kamehameha the Second, have caused the vices, miseries, and reduced or any other rights, but with a fulsome display numbers of the Islanders. The accounts are bad enough which he gives of the natives as forth. These phrases, however, emanate from they are; there is much more, he says, which the great body of American citizens resident he dares not write; it is probable that their in the capital, and who take upon themselves customs before the group was visited by the to call meetings, pass resolutions, interfere white man were revolting and unnatural. We with the Government, and desire his Majesty doubt, however, whether the three loathsome to dismiss certain ministers, rather than from diseases which obtain extensively in the our author. He goes more plainly to his ob- islands, disfiguring and rapidly destroying the ject. natives, are not imported. Independently of disease, the presence of a superior and more energetic race has a tendency to destroy the population of small places by its depressing effects: we say small places, because the same effect is not observed in Hindostan, nor among Negroes. If this account of the physical and moral state of the islanders, and of their fast declining numbers, could be thoroughly relied upon, it would be what the author uses it for

of "loyalty," regard," esteem,"
" and so

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66

lack novelty. We have had them already -an argument in favor of "annexation." through missionaries or scientific explorers,

The hypocritical pretence of advantage to the Hawaiians may be passed over, but the remo Pub-val of a race such as he describes, would be gain to morality, and a relief to themselves.

From The Spectator.
SANDWICH ISLAND NOTES.*

There is not much in the volume in comparison with its bulk. The author's flowery fluency enables him to spin pages out of nothing fresher than a moonlight at sea, a cascade, a cemetery, or other memorials of the past, which reveries he garnishes with quotations from Byron and others. His more direct descriptions of the remarkable scenery and natural phenomena of the Sandwich Islands

Sandwich Island Notes. By a Haole. lished by Low and Son.

*

*

* *

*

There is a good deal of inconsistency in his | living in the valley. Mulberry trees were cultipictures of the people, not from intention so vated; silk-worms were procured, and an immuch as from the changing nature of the sit- mense cocoonery was erected. Through his ters. Sometimes we have pictures of statu- untiring perseverance he soon raised several esque health and beauty, at other times the crops of good silk, samples of which were forwarded to Mazatlan and the city of Mexico, for natives are drawn as dirty and revoltingly which he received a very high price. The muldiseased. A similar contrariety is traceable berry leaves which an acre of soil would produce in the account of their qualities. Sooth to were sufficient food for worms that would raise say, however, the "natural man "--the man fifty pounds of raw silk. The article could be without education or restraint from external raised at an average cost of one dollar fifty cents influences, and abandoned to his own will-to two dollars per pound. Numbers of the naseems bad enough; the white man worse per- tives of both sexes, were profitably employed, haps than the colored races. Here is a tran- and many of them became much attached to the business. * sient example:But after such an interesting success, he failWhile journeying along this shore, I met a and instructive. It happened that, as on all ed! An inquiry into the failure is both natural singular-looking object. His face was bronzed other silk plantations, the worms had to be fed by a tropical sun, his eyes were blood-shotten, on Sundays (!). This did not exactly suit the and a short woollen shirt was his only garment. His haggard face, his matted hair and beard, his rigid notions of the ecclesiastics that controlled rapid steps, almost induced me to believe he had the spiritual interests of the natives. The planter just escaped from a retreat for the insane. He able at certain periods, in cash or goods, as the was in the habit of issuing paper notes, redeemwas once a white man; but a four years' inter- laborers might choose. The first step, therefore, course with the most debased and wretched of the natives, had turned him into a complete the value of this kind of payment. To a great was to create a distrust among them relative to savage. He could hardly read, much less write extent it succeeded. One by one the laborers his own name. The poor wretch was a libel on left him, until nearly two thirds of them had the enlightened State of Connecticut, for from that part of the United States he originally disappeared from the premises. Every obstacle was thrown in the planter's way. The winding up of the drama was positively to interdict natives employing a few minutes on the Sabbath to feed silk-worms; and this was done on a penalty of excommunication, and the pains of an endless shower of hell-fire beyond the grave.

came. He refused to tell his name. At this, however, I was not surprised. His downcast eyes indicated a sense of shame of his abject condition. His personal mien and appearance established more firmly than ever in my own mind the theory that the white man, severed from the civilizing influences of society, is capable of becoming a more debased wretch than the savages or aborigines among whom he lives. Such a scene is calculated to draw tears from the eyes of angels, and to fill the bosom of any living man with sorrow for the brutal condition of many of his species. I have witnessed many such scenes on the Sandwich Islands, and they are numerous on the islands scattered over the wide Pacific Ocean.

Here is a story of a better kind: for mere forms and dogmas, or reading and writing, have no permanent influence on the uncivilized mind, but rather breed conceited hypocrites or prigs, if unaccompanied by arts that excite industry.

Civilization is best tested by its results. One of these tests was the school of Hawaiian youth, There is some inconsistency, too, in the of both sexes, under the care of Mr. Dwight. author's notice of the missionaries. At times had been organized by himself into a sewingThere was a class of girls in that school who he ascribes a good deal of merit to the men class. It was the first time in my life, and it may and of success to their labors, with an occa- be the last, that I saw a class of girls whose sewsional touch of pious unction, not at all in ing accupations were under the supervision of a keeping with other passages. Then he de- gentleman. But Mr. Dwight was a Yankee, and nounces their interference with the govern- a Yankee can turn his attention to anything, for ment, legislation, and police-apparently with he certainly is the most remarkable specimen of judgment; and gives an instance of clerical the genus homo that has ever helped to compose persecution such as the following. the family of man. Aside from Mr. Dwight's oughly enterprising Yankee," Mr. Titcomb, of a gentleman with the deep and eloquent symYankeeism, he combined the sterling qualities attempted the production of silk as a commer-pathies of a refined Christian woman. He loved cial speculation, thinking the climate adapted those girls, and in return they loved him. It was

"A thor

to it.

a love such as is reciprocated by father and child. He was their physician when sick, their friend and adviser in health. There were not wanting those, however, among his own "brethren," who rather felt inclined to stigmatize his celibacy; for he was a bachelor.

But to return to this sewing-class. Mr. Dwight

Being a total novice in the business, he procured what he subsequently knew purely from the study of books that treated on the subject. After acquiring a knowledge of it himself, he began to impart practical lessons to some of the natives LIVING AGE. VOL. VI. 38

DLX.

had taught his school-girls to sew, and their work | bestowed a greater physical benefit on the perwould have honored the instructions of the most former than this. Formerly it was indulged in punctilious woman. They cut and made up by all classes of persons, of all ages and both sundry unmentionables for gentlemen, besides sexes, from royalty to the lowest plebeian, at one cutting and making all their own drapery. The time and in the same place. Even the huge articles they manufactured for gentlemen were Regent Kaahumanu and others, by whose coffins sold in stores. In several instances they have I stood and pondered in the royal tomb at Hocommanded a ready and lucrative sale at the nolulu, were in the habit of bathing in the surf agricultural fairs in Honolulu; where they would at Lahaina. At this day the sport is confined favorably compare with the needlework of the more to the youthful portion of the community. foreign belle, upon whose education years of Surf-bathing is an exciting sport to the swimtime and purses of money had been expended. mer, and a cause for excitement and astonishBut they had some inducement to be industrious. ment on the part of an unaccustomed spectator. For an article which would sell for two dollars, The swimmers start out from the shore taking the maker of it would receive a compensation of with them their surf-boards. These boards are seventy-five cents, and so on in a regular ratio. of dimensions suited to the muscular strength With the avails of their own labor they furnish- and capacity of the swimmers. As they proceed ed their own wardrobes, which were highly cred-seaward, they dive like ducks underneath the itable. That class of sewing-girls numbered heavy rollers, and come up on the other side. about thirty; and they never met or dispersed in This course is pursued until the outermost roller their usual capacity without singing a hymn and is reached, sometimes nearly a mile from the invoking the blessing and protection of Heaven. shore. The higher the roller the more exciting and grand is the sport. Placing themselves on The exertions of the missionaries, the pre- these boards, the bathers gradually approach sence of industrial and corrupting foreigners, the inward current of the roller as it sweeps with the national depression that great na- over the reef, and, lying on the chest, striding, tional changes indicative of inferiority induce, kneeling, or standing up on the board, they are have led to the discontinuance of those gym-with the speed of the swiftest race-horse toward borne on the foaming crest of the mighty wave nastic exercises in which all the South Sea the shore, where a spectator looks to see them Islanders excelled. One aquatic exercise, dashed into pieces or maimed for life. By a and a noble one, still remains, though even dexterous movement, however, they slip off their the practice of that is declining. boards into the water, grasp them in their hands, dive beneath the yet foaming and thundering Of the numerous national games and amuse- surge, and go out seaward to repeat the sport. ments formerly practised by the Hawaiians surf- This they do for hours in succession, until a bathing is about the only one which has not be- traveller is almost led to suppose they are amcome extinct. Lahaina is the only place on the phibious. This game involves great skill; it is group where it is maintained with any degree of acquired only by commencing it in the earliest enthusiasm, and even there it is rapidly passing childhood. A standing position on the swiftly out of existence. In other days there was no gliding surf-board is a feat of skill never yet amusement which more displayed the skill or surpassed by any circus-rider.

ENGLISH people have heard of the Caucasus-of course. Are they not of the Caucasian race? But a real, living knowledge of this singularly interesting country, such as we have of India, Polynesia, and other lands, "far as the breeze can bear the billows foam," has yet to be attained. Hitherto it has been veiled from us, ay, as closely as its own beauti- the Scythians, being unable to conquer, marful maidens, sold, strangely enough, by their ried-linking them, on being taken prisoners, liberty-loving fathers, into the slavery of the in silken bonds; and at this day the women

Elbrous, the greatest of its mountains, before it reached Ararat, and it is believed by the natives that the weight of the floating world split the mountain into the two peaks which it now presents. It was here that Prometheus was chained to the rock-a myth that still lingers amongst the mountaineers. It was here that the Argonauts discovered the golden fleece, though the river Phasis no longer runs with gold. Here dwelt the Amazons, whom

From Taits' Magazine. OUR ALLY IN THE MOUNTAINS.*

Turkish harem.

Yet the Caucasus has made a figure in mythology and tradition, in history, both ancient and modern. The ark, it is said, rested on Schamyl, Sultan, Warrior, and Prophet of the Caucasus. (Travellers' Library.) Longman and

Co. 1854.

stand shoulder to shoulder with their husbands in battle, sharing in all their fatigues, privations, and dangers, even captivity and death. The Caucasus was also one of the battle-fields of Alexander the Great; and here, too, Mithridates, whom poison could not kill, took refuge from the more puissant Pompey; and