The first is a learned entomologist, who, hearing one evening at the
Linnean Society that a yellow Scarabaeus, otherwise beetle, of a very rare
kind was to be captured on the sands at Swansea, immediately took his seat
in the mail for that place, and brought back in triumph the object of his
desire. The second is Mr. David Douglas, who spent two years among the
wild Indians of the Rocky Mountains, was reduced to such extremities as
occasionally to sup upon the flaps of his saddle; and once, not having
this resource, was obliged to eat up all the seeds he had collected the
previous forty days in order to appease the cravings of nature. Not
appalled by these sufferings, he has returned again to endure similar
hardships, and all for a few simples. The third example is Mr. Drummond,
the assistant botanist to Franklin in his last hyperborean journey. In the
midst of snow, with the thermometer 15° below zero, without a tent,
sheltered from the inclemency of the weather only by a hut built of the
branches of trees, and depending for subsistence from day to day on a
solitary Indian hunter, "I obtained," says this amiable and enthusiastic
botanist, "a few mosses; and, on Christmas day,"--mark, gentle reader, the
day, of all others, as if it were a reward for his devotion,--"I had the
pleasure of finding a very minute Gymnóstomum, hitherto undescribed. I
remained alone for the rest of the winter, except when my man occasionally
visited me with meat; and I found the time hang very heavy, as I had no
books, and nothing could be done in the way of collecting specimens of
natural history."
_Magazine of Natural History_
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[Illustration: BURIAL PLACE IN TONGATABU.]
This is another of Mr. Bennett's sketches made during his recent visit to
several of the Polynesian Islands. It represents the burial-place of the
Chiefs of Tongatabu: over this "earthly prison of their bones," we may say
with Titus Andronicus:
In pence and honour rest you here my sons:
(The) readiest champions, repose you here,
Secure from worldly chances and mishaps:
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned grudges: here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.
Mr. Bennett thus describes the spot, with some interesting circumstances:
"July 29th. I visited this morning a beautiful spot named Maofanga, at a
short distance from our anchorage; here was the burial-place of the chiefs.
The tranquillity of this secluded spot, and the drooping trees of the
casuarina equisetifolia, added to the mournful solemnity of the place.
Off this place, the Astrolabe French discovery ship lay when, some time
before, she fired on the natives. The circumstances respecting this affair,
as communicated to me, if correct, do not reflect much credit on the
commander of the vessel. They are as follow: During a gale the Astrolabe
drove on the reef, but was afterwards got off by the exertion of the
natives; some of the men deserting from the ship, the chiefs were accused
of enticing them away, and on the men not being given up the ship fired on
the village; the natives barricaded themselves on the beach by throwing up
sand heaps, and afterwards retired into the woods. The natives pointed out
the effects of the shot; on the trees, a large branch of a casuarina tree
in the sacred enclosure was shot off, several coco-nut trees were cut in
two, and the marks of several spent shots still remain on the trees: three
natives were killed in this attack. A great number of the flying-fox, or
vampire bat, hung from the casuarina trees in this enclosure, but the
natives interposed to prevent our firing at them, the place being tabued.
Mr. Turner had been witness to the interment here, not long previously, of
the wife of a chief, and allied to the royal family. The body, enveloped
in mats, was placed in a vault, in which some of her relations had been
before interred, and being covered up, several natives advanced with
baskets of sand, &c. and strewed it over the vault; others then approached
and cut themselves on the head with hatchets, wailing and showing other
demonstrations of grief. Small houses are erected over the vaults. All the
burial-places are either fenced round or surrounded by a low wall of coral
stones, and have a very clean, neat, and regular appearance.
"I observed that nearly the whole of the natives whom I had seen, were
deficient in the joints of the little finger of the left hand, and some of
both; some of the first joint only, others two, and many the whole of both
fingers. On inquiry, I found that a joint is chopped off on any occasion
of the illness or death of a relation or chief, as a propitiatory offering
to the Spirit. There is a curious analogy between this custom and one
related by Mr. Burchell as existing among the Bushmen tribe in Southern
Africa, and performed for similar superstitious reasons to express grief
for the loss of relations.
"Near this place was the Hufanga, or place of refuge, in which a person in
danger of being put to death is in safety as long as he remains there; on
looking in the enclosure, it was only a place gravelled over, in which was
a small house and some trees planted."[1]
[1] United Service Journal, Jan. 1832.
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