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The Works of Washington Irving (2); Astoria. Captain Bonneville
The Works of Washington Irving Astoria Captain Bonneville - 2 Author:Washington Irving Volume: 2 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1881 Original Publisher: G.P. Putnam's sons Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com... more » where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VL Qwyhkk, or Hawaii, as it is written by more exact orthogrn- phcrs, is the largest of the cluster, ten in number', of the Sandwich Islands. It is about ninety-seven miles in length, and seventy-eight in breadth, rising gradually into three pyramidal summits or cones; the highest, Monna Roa, being eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, so as to domineer over the whole Archipelago, and to be a landmark over a wide extent of ocean. It remains a lasting monument of the enterprising and unfortunate Captain Cook, who was murdered by the natives of this island. The Sandwich Islanders, when first discovered, evinced a character superior to most of the savages of the Pacific Isles They were frank and open in their deportment, friendly and liberal in their dealings, with an apt ingenuity apparent in all their rude inventions. The tragical fate of the discoverer, which, for a time, brought them under the charge of ferocity, was, in fact, the result of sudden exasperation, caused by the seizure of their chief. At the time of the visit of the Tonquin, the islanders had profited, in many respects, by occasional intercourse with whit men ; and had shown a quickness to observe and cultivate those arts important to their mode of living. Originally they had no means of navigating the seas by which they were surrounded, superior to light pirogues, which were little competent to eon tend with the storms of the broad ocean. Aa the Islanders are TAMAAHMAAH HIS NAVY. not in sight of each other, there could, therefore, be but casual intercourse betwe...« less