_By Miss Jane Porter_.
While in the north of Europe, I met with a rather extraordinary person,
whose account of himself might afford a subject for a pretty romance; a
sort of new Paul and Virginia; but with what different catastrophe, it
is not fair to presage. He described himself as a Frenchman, a native of
Bourdeaux; where, at an early age, he was put on board a merchant ship,
to learn the profession of a seaman. About that time war broke out
between Great Britain, and the lately proclaimed Republic of France;
and the vessel he was in, being attacked, and taken by an English
man-of-war, he was carried a prisoner into England. When there, his
naturally enterprising character would not submit itself to a state of
captivity; and, soon making his wishes understood, he entered on board a
British sloop, bound to New Holland. While gazing with rapt astonishment
on the seeming new heavens which canopied that, to him, also, new
portion of the globe; while the stars of the Cross were exciting his
youthful wonder; and he could no where find the constellations of the
Great, or Little Bear in the midnight firmament, the sky was suddenly
overcast with a cloud, like the pall of nature, and a fearful tempest
burst from it. The scene was dreadful on that wide waste of waters; and
the vessel being driven at last into the rocky labyrinths of the Society
Isles, was finally wrecked on one not many leagues from the celebrated
Otaheite. Laonce, the young Frenchman, and one seaman of the sloop, an
honest north Briton, were the only persons who escaped; for when morning
broke, they found themselves, restored from insensibility, lying on the
shore, and not a trace of the ship, or of those who had navigated her,
was to be discerned. The inhabitants of the island, apparently wild
savages by their almost naked state, instead of seizing them as a prey,
took them to their huts, fed, and cherished them. Hope for awhile
flattered them that some other vessel, bound for New Holland, might also
be driven upon those islands, though not with the same hard fate, and
that by her means they might be released, and conveyed back to Europe.
But days, and weeks, and months, wearing away without any such arrival,
they began to regard the expectation less, and to turn their minds to
take a more intimate interest in objects around them. Time, indeed,
accustomed them to what might be called barbarous, in the manners of the
people; by degrees, even themselves laid aside their European habits;
they exchanged their clothing for the half-exposed fashion of the native
chiefs; and, adopting their pursuits and pleasures, became hunters, and
bold fishers in the light canoe. Finally, they learnt to speak the
language, as if they had been born in the island; and, at length, sealed
their insular destiny by marrying native women. Laonce was hardly
eighteen when he was first cast ashore amongst them; but having a
handsome person, and those engaging manners, from a naturally amiable
disposition added to a gentleman's breeding, which never fail agreeably
impressing even the rudest minds, the eye of female tenderness soon
found him out; and the maiden, being the daughter of the king, and
beautiful withal, had only to hint her wishes to her royal sire; and the
king naming them to their distinguished object, she immediately became
his happy bride. Laonce, becoming thus royally allied, and in the line
of the throne, instantly received publicly the investiture of the
highest order of Otaheitan nobility, namely, a species of tattooing
appropriated to chiefs alone. The limbs of the body thus distinguished,
are traversed all over with a damasked sort of pattern, while the
particular royal insignia is marked on the left side of the forehead,
and below the eye, like a thick mass of dark tattooing.
But the young Frenchman, and his north Briton companion, had reserved to
themselves means of increasing their consequence, still more than by
their mere personal merits, with their new fellow-countrymen. A few days
after the wreck, the subsiding elements had cast up certain articles of
the ship, which they managed to turn to good account: the most valuable
of them were fire-arms and some gunpowder, and a few other implements,
both of defence, and use in household, or ship's repairs. The fire-arms
seemed to endow the new young chief, just engrafted into the reigning
stock, with a kind of preternatural authority; and, by the aid of his
old messmate, and new bosom-coadjutor, he exerted all his influence over
their awed minds, to prevent their recurrence to the frightful practice
he had seen on his first landing, of devouring the prisoners they took
in war. His marriage had invested him with the power of a natively born
son of the king; and, having made himself master of their language, his
persuasions were so conclusive with the leading warriors, that, in the
course of a very little time, it was rare to hear that so dreadful a
species of vengeance was ever tasted, even in stealth. However, so
addicted were some few of the fiercer sort, to this ancient triumph of
their ancestors, that he found it necessary to add commands to
persuasions, and then threats to commands; and having expressed in the
strongest terms his abhorrence of so cowardly and brutal a practice, he
told them, that the first man he saw attempt to touch the flesh of a
prisoner to devour it, he would instantly put the offender to death.
Shortly after this warning, a fray took place between the natives of his
father-in-law's dominions, and their enemies from a hostile island. A
number of captives were taken; and all under his command held his former
orders in such reverence, that none, excepting two (and they had before
shown refractory dispositions,) presumed to disobey his edict of mercy.
But these men, in derision of his lenity, particularly to the female
sex, selected a woman prisoner to be their victim; and slaying her, as
they would have done a beast, they commenced their horrible repast upon
her body. Laonce descried the scene at a distance just as they had
prepared their hideous banquet, and, going resolutely towards them,
levelled his musket at the cannibals. One of the wretches was killed
with the horrid morsel in his mouth, and a second shot, brought down his
voracious accomplice in the act. This bold example so awed all within
ken of the fact, that from that hour, until the day he quitted the
island, a period of fourteen years, no captive ever met with the
interdicted fate. Though the old sovereign continued in life, he
consigned the power to his new son, and Laonce became virtually king of
the place. Indeed, so reconciled was he and his friend the north Briton
(who also married) to the spot which had first sheltered them, and then
adopted them even as its legitimate offspring, that although many ships
of different nations touched there, no inducements could prevail on them
to quit their sea-girt home of simple nature, for all the blandishments
which civilized life could produce. Yet Laonce took a hospitable delight
in showing every act of friendship in his power to the captains of the
vessels; refitting them with food and fresh water; and rendering them
much essential service, in pointing out how to manage with safety the
difficult navigation round the several islands.
The animation with which he recited these circumstances, after he was
far from the spot where they took place, strongly portrayed the fearless
independence of his former life. He spoke with the decision of one whose
commands had been unappealable, and all the barbarian chief lightened in
his eyes. But when he recalled his home there, his family happiness, his
countenance fell, his eyes clouded, and he spoke in half-stifled words.
He described his palace-hut; his arms, his hunting spear, his canoe; his
return to his hut, with the fruits of the chase; the graceful, delicate
person of his wife; her clinging fondness on his entrance; his
tenderness for her, and for his children--for she bore to him a son and
a daughter; and, while he spoke, he burst into tears, and sobbed like a
child. "I was then beloved," said he, "Honoured!--master of all around
me; Now, I am nothing:--no home--no wife--no friend! I am an outcast
here!--when there! Oh, Berea! wilt thou have forgotten me?" His tears,
and wild agonies, prevented him proceeding; and my eyes could not remain
dry, when seeing such genuine grief, such real suffering.
But the cause of his being separated from his South-Sea home, and his
beloved Berea and her babes, remains to be told. It appears, that about
three years before the period I met him, a Russian ship, sent on a
voyage of discoveries, touched at the island where Laonce had become
naturalized. The captain was received with royal hospitality by the
king; and the _Prince Laonce_ became the glad interpreter between the
Europeans and his august father-in-law--for the captain spoke French.
And, besides procuring the crew all they wanted for common comforts, the
young chief loaded the commander and his officers with useful presents.
One night it blew a violent gale, and the Russian captain, deeming it
impossible to keep his anchorage in a bay so full of unseen dangers,
made signals to the land, in hopes of exciting some native, experienced
in the navigation, to come off, and direct him how to steer. Every
moment increased his jeopardy; the storm augmented; and, at each growing
blast, he expected to be torn from his cables, and dashed to atoms
against the rocks. No one moved from the shore. Again the signals were
repeated: Laonce had risen from his bed on hearing the first. Who was
there amongst all in that island, excepting his British comrade, who
would have known how to move _a ship_ through those boiling waves? The
light canoe, and a vessel of heavy burthen, were different objects! His
comrade was then watching by the side of an almost dying wife, who had
just made him the father of his first-born son. Could Laonce summon him
from that spot of his heart's tenderest duties, to attend to the roaring
guns of distress from a stranger vessel? Impossible! He rose, and looked
out on the night. He listened to the second signal, he wrung his hands,
and, sighing, was returning to his couch again. His wife had then risen
also. She clasped her arms round him, and a big tear stood in both her
eyes, "You tell me," said she, "that your people do not make those
thunders to heaven, and to earth, till they are drowning. You know you
can save them all. Go, Lao,"--and she smiled; "go; and the foreign
chief, after you have saved him, will give you something for me--either
a looking-glass, or a silk handkerchief. Go, Lao."
He wound his arms round the gentle pleader; and, almost ashamed that the
father and the husband in his heart, should make him calculate between
his own life and that of the gallant crew, he told her, that the tempest
raged too tremendously for him to dare stemming it. But she laughingly
repulsed his caresses, accusing his fondness for her as the inducement
of his assumed apprehensions; and being too long accustomed to the
rashness of her own people, in braving every weather, to believe any
plea of positive danger, she still persisted; saying she must have a
silk handkerchief that night from yon ship, or she should think he loved
his sound sleep better than he did his fond Berea.
The enthusiastic love which still warmed the faithful husband's breast,
and a third signal of distress from the struggling vessel, mastered his
better judgment, and, seizing his canoe, he dashed into the foaming
waves and boldly stemmed their fury to the object of his mission. The
overjoyed crew, as they heard his voice hailing them through the storm,
cast out a rope, by which they hoisted him into their cracking ship. The
most rapturous acknowledgments from the captain, greeted him as soon as
he jumped on the deck; and the eager seamen called him their deliverer.
He was happy! he said, he was happy in the achievement of what he had
done; he had obeyed the wish of his beloved Berea, and he had survived
the lashing surge. He was happy, in the confidence that he should rescue
the gallant vessel he came to take under his control. But that hour of
happiness was his last. He took the helm in his hands; he gave the
requisite directions to the seamen, for the management of the ship; and
he soon steered her out of the dangers of the bay, till she rode in
safety on the main ocean. He then asked for a boat to carry him on
shore, for his canoe had been crushed by an accident. But the wind still
blowing hurricanes, they would not venture the loss of one of their
boats: and during the hot contentions between him, and the ungrateful
chief of the vessel he had preserved, they were driven out far to sea;
whence his swimming arm, had he plunged into the boisterous deep, could
have been of no use to him. Indignation, despair, overwhelmed him. None
appeared to understand the nature of his feelings; all pretending to
wonder that a European born, should not be grateful to any occasion that
would carry him away from a savage country like that. In vain Laonce
remonstrated; in vain he talked of his wife and children; the captain
and his sailors laughed, promised him better of both sorts among his
kindred whites; and when he cursed their hardened hearts and cruel
treachery, they laughed again, and left him to his misery. At last, when
the protracted hurricane subsided, and the vessel's log-book proved that
she had been driven several degrees leeward of the Society Isles,
abandoned to a sullen despair, he ceased to accuse or to reproach; he
ceased even to speak on any subject, but cast himself into his lonely
berth during the day, that he might not be irritated to continued
unavailing madness, by the sight of the ingrates who had betrayed him.
To his straining eyes, nothing but the silvery line of the starlit sea
was on that distant horizon; but his heart's vision pierced farther,
and he beheld the sleepers in that home;--no, not the sleepers! His
disconsolate, his despairing wife, tearing her bright locks, and beating
the tender bosom he must no longer clasp to his own. His children--"Oh!
my babes!" cried he, and the cry of a father's heart for once pierced
the obdurate bosom of the captain, who, in that moment, had happened
to come upon the deck to examine the night. To ease his Otaheitan
benefactor, he declared he had thus carried him off, to share in the
honour of his expected discoveries. The unhappy chief, in then answering
him, begged, that if he had, indeed, any spark of honesty towards him,
he would prove it, by obeying his wish in one thing at least; and that
was, to set him on shore on the first European settlement they should
fall in with. "Do this," said he, "and I may yet believe you have
honour. For honour is a man's own act; a discovery is fortune's; and for
its advantages, did I stay, I should not have to thank you. But I want
none such. Set me on shore, and there I will follow my own destiny."
To this poor request, the iron-souled commander of the vessel, at last
consented; and in the course of some weeks after, Laonce was landed on
the coast of Kamschatka. His secret intent was to lie in wait for the
possibility of some ship touching at the port where he was set ashore,
that might be bound to the track of his beloved islands; but not
uttering a word of this, to the reprobate wretch who had torn him
thence, he simply bade him "farewell! and to use his next pilot better;"
so saying, they parted for ever. But weeks and months passed away, and
no vessel bound for the South Seas, showed itself in that distant
latitude; and its gloomy fogs, and chilling atmosphere, its pale sky,
where the sun never shone for more than three or four hours in the day,
seemed to wither up his life with his waning hopes! In no way did it
resemble the land he had left; the warm, and the genial heavens of the
home he was yet bent to find again;--and he left Kamschatka for some
more propitious port; but, like _Sinbad the Sailor_, he wandered in
vain. A cruel spell seemed set on him, or on the spirit of adventure;
for in no place could he hear of a vessel going the way of his prayers.
At last he arrived, by a most tedious and circuitous journey at Moscow,
with a design to lay his case before the young and ardent Alexander, the
then Emperor of Russia; with the hope that his benevolence, and a sense
of what he had done for the vessel which had betrayed him, would incline
his majesty to make some effort to return him to his island, and his
family.
That this hope was not vain, the character of the good Alexander, since
proved by a life of undeviating promptness to all acts of humanity, may
be a sufficient voucher. But whether the homeward-bound chief, found, on
his setting his foot again upon the ground whence he had been so cruelly
rifled; and whence, indeed, the innocent confidence, the playful
bravery of his fond wife, had urged him; whether he found his
cherishly-remembered home, yet standing as he left it; and her, still
the tender and the true to his never-wandered heart; and whether his
children sprang to his knee, to share the parental caress; and the
people around, raised the _haloo_ of joy to the returned _son of their
king!_--whether these fondly-expected greetings hailed his arrival,
cannot be absolutely told; for the vessel that took him out, was to make
the circuit of the globe, ere it returned; hence, from that, and other
circumstances, the facts have never reached the narrator of this little
history, of what was really the meeting between Laonce and his Berea; of
the young chief, and the natives he had devotedly served! But can the
faithful hearts of wedded love, doubt the one; or manly attachment
suspect the other? For the honour of human nature, we will believe that
all was right; and, in the faith of a humble Christian, we will believe,
that "he who shewed mercy, found mercy!"; That he is now restored to his
island-home, and to his happy, grateful family!
* * * * *
Among the _poetical_ contributions are The Angels' Call, and Woman and
Fame, by Mrs. Hemans; Carthage, and Stanzas, by T.K. Hervey; the Chapel
on the Cliff, by W. Kennedy; all entitled to high praise. A Christian's
Day, by Miss A.M. Porter, is a sweet devotional composition. The extract
from one of Mr. Atherstone's unpublished books of the Fall of Nineveh,
maintains the high opinion already formed of the published part. Mr. C.
Swain has two beautiful pieces. We have only room to name those _gems_
of the poetry, viz. Wearie's Well, and another beautiful ballad, by W.
Motherwell; and some exquisite lines by the Rev. G. Croly; and to quote
the following:--