Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Na Motu, or Reef-Rovings in the South Seas: A Narrative of Adventures at the Hawaiian, Georgian and Society Islands; With Maps, Twelve Original Illustrations, and an Appendix Relating to the Resources, Social and Political Condition of Polynesia, and Subjects of Interest in the Pacific Ocean
Unlike the Old World, Polynesia boasts of no monuments of antiquity the ruins of Ileidu and Marcie are but the relics of a few generations that have passed away - beyond that resting-point we look into obscurity. Though we discover no hieroglyphics of mystic import to conjure up gloomy reveries, we are ever opening a new page in the Book of Nature, fresh and glowing with the intelligible symbols of beauty and sub limity. We are wont to associate with these miniature gardens the reveries of romance - the brightest conceptions of poetic imagery; but re?ection will impress us with realities of deeper interest, and the ideal will be forgotten as we link the present to the shadowy future. For a moment, we revert to the period when islands rose from liquid depths, put forth their ?ies, and hill and valley bloomed amid varied phenomena, unseen by other than the eye of their Creator. Again, we view them as in majesty and power they stand forth Nature's giant sarco phagi of a slumbering element - emeralds upon a field of blue, the home of millions basking in perennial sunshine, but covered with intellectual darkness. Centuries roll round; science and enterprise hand in hand reveal but the relic of a once numerous race, for the strong men have bowed themselves, and though religion has bestowed its precious boon, and benevolence and philanthropy have gratuitously scattered their gifts, they have failed to rescue a people hastening to oblivion.
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