tion.
But it is needless to multiply the examples of civilized barbarity; they
far exceed in the amount of misery they cause the crimes which we regard
with such abhorrence in our less enlightened fellow-creatures.
The term 'Savage' is, I conceive, often misapplied, and indeed, when I
consider the vices, cruelties, and enormities of every kind that spring
up in the tainted atmosphere of a feverish civilization, I am inclined
to think that so far as the relative wickedness of the parties is
concerned, four or five Marquesan Islanders sent to the United States
as Missionaries might be quite as useful as an equal number of Americans
despatched to the Islands in a similar capacity.
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.
In the altered frame of mind to which I have referred, every object that
presented itself to my notice in the valley struck me in a new light,
and the opportunities I now enjoyed of observing the manners of its
inmates, tended to strengthen my favourable impressions. One peculiarity
that fixed my admiration was the perpetual hilarity 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 payable,
no debts of honour in Typee; no unreasonable tailors and shoemakers
perversely bent on being paid; no duns of any description 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 bed-chamber, 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-hearted 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.
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