The kingfisher watches, while o'er him his foe The lightning darts zigzag and forked through the gloom, The tempest glides o'er with its terrible train, On the green grass dance shadows, streams sparkle and run, And full on the form of the Demon in flight The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight! The Gray Forest Eagle! oh, where is he now, While the sky wears the smile of its God on its brow? There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath, Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away, The green tiny pine-shrub points up from the moss, The wren's foot would cover it, tripping across; The beech-nut, down dropping, would crush it beneath, Its thick branches challenge each mood of the sky; A trunk dry and wasted, a top jagged and bare, The Eagle has seen it up-struggling to sight, Then prostrate, soil-blended, with plants sprouting o'er, Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud! He has seen from his eyrie the forest below In bud and in leaf, robed with crimson and snow, And he sees dome and roof where those smokes once arose ; An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty, and high, Oh, that Eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye, The American Eagle has been the subject of a vast deal of cloudy declamation, of frothy and turgid writing, both in prose and verse, and emblemized ridiculousness, in sculptorial, pictured and every other species of screaming representation. Still, he is none the less a noble bird, that he has been so bragged of and "shown up." There is something left of him, notwithstanding that windy patriots have-metaphorically speakingtied a string to his leg, fed him with foul meat, and turning the heart-sick, rumpled and drooping "sky-king," as Mr. Street calls him, around on a stick, have bid the gaping crowd of home-admirers near by, and the somewhat reserved outer-cir cle of foreign nations, "obsarve the keen irish of his eye." He is still able to shoot from some "skiey peak," and hush the singing of smaller birds with the "black gliding" of his shadow across the valley. His scream will always be eminent, we imagine, among "The many-voiced sounds of the blastsmitten wood." We have a high regard for the British lion. We think it somewhat perilous to pound him on the back, or make too free with the strange horror stirring in his mane." Crouching or rampant, there is some force in his countenance. He has a strong claim to be called king of the middle, flowed in natural ringlets over her shoulders, and whenever she chanced to stoop, fell over and hid from view her lovely bosom. Gazing into the depths of her strange blue eyes, when she was in a contemplative mood, they seemed most placid yet unfathomable; but when illuminated by some lively emotion, they beamed upon the beholder like stars. The hands of Fayaway were as soft and delicate as those of any countess; for an entire exemption from rude labor marks the girlhood and even prime of a Typee woman's life. Her feet, though wholly exposed, were as diminutive and fairly shaped as those which peep from beneath the skirts of a Lima Lady's dress. The skin of this young creature, from continual ablutions and the use of mollifying ointments, was inconceivably smooth and soft. "I may succeed, perhaps, in particularizing some of the individual features of Fayaway's beauty, but that general loveliness of appearance which they all contributed to produce I will not attempt to describe. The easy, unstudied graces of a child of nature like this, breathing from infancy an atmosphere of perpetual summer, and nurtured by the simple fruits of the earth; enjoying a perfect freedom from care and anxiety, and removed effectually from all injurious tendencies, strike the eye in a manner which cannot be portrayed. This picture is no fancy sketch; it is drawn from the most vivid recollections of the person delineated." The reader will gather some idea of the costume and appearance of the Typee fair ones from the following delineation: of ornamenting themselves with similar appendages. "Flora was their jeweler. Sometimes they wore necklaces of small carnation flowers, strung like rubies upon a fibre of tappa, or displayed in their ears a single white bud, the stem thrust backward through the aperture, and showing in front the delicate petals folded together in a beautiful sphere, and looking like a drop of the purest pearl. Chaplets, too, resembling in their arrangement the strawberry coronal worn by an English peeress, and composed of intertwined leaves and blossoms, often crowned their temples; and bracelets and anklets of the same tasteful pattern were frequently to be seen. deed, the maidens of the island were passionately fond of flowers, and never wearied of decorating their persons with them; a lovely trait in their character, and one that ere long will be more fully alluded to. In "Though in my eyes, at least, Fayaway was indisputably the loveliest female I saw in Typee, yet the description I have given of her will in some measure apply to nearly all the youthful portion of her sex in the valley." The natives are evidently an amphibious race, and pass nearly half their time in the water. Mr. Melville was, rather against his inclination, compelled to conform to this custom. Early one morning Kory-Kory took him on his back and landed him in the middle of a neighboring stream: "On gaining it, Kory-Kory, wading up to his hips in the water, carried me half way across, and deposited me on a smooth black stone which rose a few inches above the surface. The amphibious rabble at our heels plunged in after us, and, climbing to the summit of the grass-grown rocks with which the bed of the brook was here and there broken, waited curiously to witness our morning ablutions. "Fayaway-I must avow the fact-for the most part clung to the primitive and summer garb of Eden. But how becoming the costume! It showed her fine figure to the best possible advantage; and nothing could have been better adapted to her peculiar style of beauty. On ordinary occasions she was habited precisely as I "Somewhat embarrassed by the preshave described the two youthful savages ence of the female portion of the company, whom we had met on first entering the and feeling my cheeks burning with bashvalley. At other times, when rambling_ful timidity, I formed a primitive basin by among the groves, or visiting at the houses of her acquaintances, she wore a tunic of white tappa, reaching from her waist to a little below the knees; and when exposed for any length of time to the sun, she invariably protected herself from its rays by a floating mantle of the same material, loosely gathered about her person. Her gala dress will be described hereafter. "As the beauties of our own land delight in bedecking themselves with fanciful articles of jewelry, suspending them from their ears, hanging them about their necks, and clasping them round their wrists, so Fayaway and her companions were in the habit joining my hands together, and cooled my blushes in the water it contained; then removing my frock, bent over and washed myself down to my waist in the stream. As soon as Kory-Kory comprehended from my motions that this was to be the extent of my performance, he appeared perfectly aghast with astonishment, and rushing towards me, poured out a torrent of words in eager deprecation of so limited an operation, enjoining me by unmistakable signs to immerse my whole body. To this I was forced to consent; and the honest fellow regarding me as a froward, inexperienced child, whom it was his duty to serve at the risk of offending, lifted me from the rock, and tenderly bathed my limbs. This over, and resuming my seat, I could not avoid bursting into admiration of the scene around me. "From the verdant surfaces of the large stones that lay scattered about, the natives were now sliding off into the water, diving and ducking beneath the surface in all directions; the young girls springing buoyantly into the air, and revealing their naked forms to the waist, with their long tresses dancing about their shoulders, their eyes sparkling like drops of dew in the sun, and their gay laughter pealing forth at every frolicsome incident." Our author was annoyed in a singular manner by the island nymphs in his bathing excursions, as the following statement will show : "I remember upon one occasion plunging in among a parcel of these rivernymphs, and counting vainly on my superior strength, sought to drag some of them under the water; but I quickly repented my temerity. The amphibious young creatures swarmed about me like a shoal of dolphins, and seizing hold of my devoted limbs, tumbled me about and ducked me under the surface, until, from the strange noises, which rang in my ears, and the supernatural visions dancing before my eyes, I thought I was in the land of spirits. I stood, indeed, as little chance among them as a cumbrous whale, attacked on all sides by a legion of sword-fish. When at length they relinquished their hold of me, they swam away in every direction, laughing at my clumsy endeavors to reach them." The Typeean children are from their birth trained to the water. What would a northern mother think of such an experiment as the one here mentioned ? "One day, in company with Kory-Kory, I had repaired to the stream for the purpose of bathing, when I observed a woman sitting upon a rock in the midst of the current, and watching with the liveliest interest the gambols of something, which at first I took to be an uncommonly large species of frog that was sporting in the water near her. Attracted by the novelty of the sight, I waded towards the spot where she sat, and could hardly credit the evidence of my senses when I beheld a little infant, the period of whose birth could not have extended back many days, paddling about as if it had just risen to the surface, after being hatched into existence at the bottom. Occasionally the delighted parent reached out her hands towards it, when the little thing, uttering a faint cry, and striking out its tiny limbs, would sidle for the rock, and the next moment be clasped to its mother's bosom. This was repeated again and again, the baby remaining in the stream about a minute at a time. Once or twice it made wry faces at swallowing a mouthful of water, and choked and spluttered as if on the point of strangling. At such times, however, the mother snatched it up, and by a process scarcely to be mentioned, obliged it to eject the fluid. For several weeks afterwards I observed the woman bringing her child down to the stream regularly every day, in the cool of the morning and evening, and treating it to a bath. No wonder that the South Sea Islanders are so amphibious a race, when they are thus launched into the water as that it is as natural for a human being to soon as they see the light. I am convinced swim as it is for a duck. And yet in civilized communities how many able-bodied individuals die, like so many drowning kittens, from the occurrence of the most triv. ial accidents!" Of the social life of the Polynesian savages, Mr. Melville entertains an exalted opinion: nature has luxuriously and bountifully provided for all their wants; the necessity for labor does not exist; there are no uncomfortable variations in the climate; fruits and flowers are perennial; health is easily preserved, and seldom fails until extreme age has destroyed the vital powers; there is a total absence of all care, jealousies, rivalries, and while all nature is glowing in resplend. ent colors, the simple savage is unmolested by earthly wants or ills-with this reservation, that he must occasionally have a human victim. This is the idea we gather from Mr. Melville's general remarks. But we will allow him to speak for himself: "I once heard it given as an instance of the frightful depravity of a certain tribe in the Pacific, that they had no word in their language to express the idea of virtue. The assertion was unfounded; but were it otherwise, it might be met, by stating that their language is almost entirely destitute of terms to express the delightful ideas conveyed by our endless catalogue of civilized crimes." "One peculiarity that fixed my admira. tion was the perpetual hiliarity reigning through the whole extent of the vale. There seemed to be no cares, griefs, troubles, or vexations, in all Typee. The hours tripped along as gaily as the laughing couples down a country dance. "There were none of those thousand sources of irritation that the ingenuity of civilized man has created to mar his own felicity. There were no foreclosures of mortgages, no protested notes, no bills pay. able, no debts of honor in Typee; no unreasonable tailors and shoemakers, perversely bent on being paid; no duns of any description; no assault and battery attorneys, to foment discord, backing their clients up to a quarrel, and then knocking their heads together; no poor relations, everlastingly occupying the spare bedchamber, and diminishing the elbow-room at the family table; no destitute widows with their children starving on the cold charities of the world; no beggars; no debtors' prisons; no proud and hard-heart ed nabobs in Typee; or to sum up all in one word—no Money! "That root of all evil" was not to be found in the valley. "In this secluded abode of happiness there were no cross old women, no cruel step-dames, no withered spinsters, no lovesick maidens, no sour old bachelors, no inattentive husbands, no melancholy young men, no blubbering youngsters, and no squalling brats. All was mirth, fun, and high good-humor. Blue devils, hypochondria and doleful dumps, went and hid themselves among the nooks and crannies of the rocks. "Here you would see a parcel of children frolicking together the live-long day, and no quarreling, no contention, among them. The same number in our own land could not have played together for the space of an hour without biting or scratching one another. There you might have seen a throng of young females, not filled with envyings of each other's charms, nor displaying the ridiculous affectations of gentility, nor yet moving in whalebone corsets, like so many automatons, but free, inartificially happy, and unconstrained. "There were some spots in that sunny vale where they would frequently resort to decorate themselves with garlands of flowers. To have seen them reclining beneath the shadows of one of the beautiful groves; the ground about them strewn with freshly gathered buds and blossoms, employed in weaving chaplets and necklaces, one would have thought that all the train of Flora had gathered together to keep a festival in honor of their mistress. "With the young men there seemed almost always some matter of diversion or business on hand that afforded a constant variety of enjoyment. But whether fishing, or carving canoes, or polishing their ornaments, never was there exhibited the least sign of strife or contention among them. "As for the warriors, they maintained a tranquil dignity of demeanor, journeying occasionally from house to house, where they were always sure to be received with the attention bestowed upon distinguished guests. The old men, of whom there were many in the vale, seldom stirred from their mats, where they would recline for hours and hours, smoking and talking to one another with all the garrulity of age. "But the continual happiness, which so far as I was able to judge appeared to prevail in the valley, sprung principally from that all-pervading sensation which Rousseau has told us he at one time experienced, the mere buoyant sense of a healthful physical existence. And, indeed, in this particular the Typees had ample reason to felicitate themselves, for sickness was almost unknown. During the whole period of my stay I saw but one invalid among them; and on their smooth clear skins you observed no blemish or mark of disease." Mr. Melville has given an equally glowing description of the daily occupation of the rude islanders, which we find too long to extract. Bathing, visiting, and eating a few simple natural fruits, occupy most of their time. They have no serious labor to perform, except occasionally to repel an enemy; their religion hangs loosely upon them; indeed, Mr. Melville doubts if they have any religion at all, for though they have a few idols no great respect is shown to them. The Typee method of cooking meat is thus described-the victim, a fat porker, having been killed with clubs : "Without letting any blood from the body, it was immediately carried to a fire which had been kindled near at hand, and four savages taking hold of the carcass by its legs, passed it rapidly to and fro in the flames. In a moment the smell of burning bristles betrayed the object of this procedure. Having got thus far in the matter, the body was removed to a little distance; and, being disemboweled, the entrails were laid aside as choice parts, and the whole carcass was thoroughly washed with water. An ample thick green cloth, composed of the long thick leaves of a species of palm-tree, ingeniously tacked together with little pins of bamboo, was now spread upon the ground, in which the body being carefully rolled, it was borne to an oven previously prepared to receive it. Here it was at once laid upon the heated stones at the bottom, and covered with thick layers of leaves, the whole being quickly hidden from sight by a mound of earth raised over it." Their method of preparing and eating fish appears to be still more primitive, and we recommend a trial of it to the fish-loving population on the Atlantic coast: "I grieve to state so distressing a fact, but the inhabitants of Typee were in the habit of devouring fish much in the same |