A DALLIANCE on a PRIMEVAL ARCHIPELAGO

<p>In a primitive state of society the enjoyments of life though few<br>and simple are spread over a great extent and are unalloyed; but<br>Civilization for every advantage she imparts holds a hundred evils in<br>reserve;--the heart-burnings the jealousies the social rivalries<br>the family dissentions and the thousand self-inflicted discomforts of<br>refined life which make up in units the swelling aggregate of human<br>misery are unknown among these unsophisticated people.</p><p>But it will be urged that these shocking unprincipled wretches are<br>cannibals. Very true; and a rather bad trait in their character it must<br>be allowed. But they are such only when they seek to gratify the passion<br>of revenge upon their enemies; and I ask whether the mere eating of<br>human flesh so very far exceeds in barbarity that custom which only<br>a few years since was practised in enlightened England:--a convicted<br>traitor perhaps a man found guilty of honesty patriotism and suchlike<br>heinous crimes had his head lopped off with a huge axe his bowels<br>dragged out and thrown into a fire; while his body carved into four<br>quarters was with his head exposed upon pikes and permitted to rot and<br>fester among the public haunts of men!</p><p>The fiend-like skill we display in the invention of all manner of<br>death-dealing engines the vindictiveness with which we carry on our<br>wars and the misery and desolation that follow in their train are<br>enough of themselves to distinguish the white civilized men as the most<br>ferocious animal on the face of the earth.</p><p><br>As soon as we succeeded in making the natives understand our intention<br>they broke out into the most vehement opposition to the measure and<br>for a while I almost despaired of obtaining their consent. At the bare<br>thought of one of us leaving them they manifested the most lively<br>concern. The grief and consternation of Kory-Kory in particular was<br>unbounded; he threw himself into a perfect paroxysm of gestures which<br>were intended to convey to us not only his abhorrence of Nukuheva<br>and its uncivilized inhabitants but also his astonishment that after<br>becoming acquainted with the enlightened Typees we should evince the<br>least desire to withdraw even for a time from their agreeable society.</p>