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قراءة كتاب The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829

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‏اللغة: English
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction
Volume 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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resent the aggression, but held up axes, beads, and toys, as peace-offerings, upon which the assailants desisted from farther hostilities. As soon as the wind had moderated, an aged chief, in a canoe, put off to the ship. He was received with caresses, accepted the presents offered to him: and upon going ashore, pacified the islanders by assurances that the ship's crew were peaceably inclined towards them. Upon this, several natives went on board, and were all presented with toys. In return, they supplied the crew with yams, fowls, bananas, cocoa-nuts, hogs, &c. and confidence was established between them. The ship was now abandoned, and the crew went on shore, bringing with them part of her stores. Here they remained for some time, and built a small vessel with the materials from the wreck. When it was ready to put to sea, as many as could conveniently, embarked in her, being plentifully supplied with fresh provisions by the islanders. The commander promised those who were left behind, to return immediately with presents for the natives, and to bring them off; but, as the little vessel was never afterwards heard of, the men sought the protection of the neighbouring chiefs, with whom they lived. Several muskets and some gunpowder had been left them by their comrades, and by means of these, they proved of great service to their friends, in encounters with the neighbouring islanders."

The natives of Manicolo are not cannibals; but when an enemy falls into their power he is immediately killed, and his body is deposited in sea-water, and kept there until the bones become perfectly bare. The skeleton is then taken up, the bones of the extremities scraped and cut into various forms, to point arrows and spears. Their arms consist of heavy clubs, spears, and bows and arrows. They poison the latter with a kind of reddish gum, extracted from a species of tree peculiar to the island. When any one is struck by a poisoned arrow in any of the limbs, the part is quickly cut out, and his life is sometimes saved; but if the wound happens to be in the body, where it cannot be easily excised, he resigns himself quietly to death without a murmur, though he frequently lingers for four or five days in excruciating agony.

The Manicolans differ from almost all the other islanders in the South Sea; they are as black as negroes, have short woolly hair, and resemble them in their features. Their religion also is different; in every village in the island there is a house dedicated to the Deity. At the principal chapel, the skulls of all the people who were killed, belonging to the ship that grounded at Whanoo, are still preserved. The natives of Tucopia, unaccustomed to the sight of human bones, avoid, as much as possible, when they visit the island, approaching the sacred house where the skulls are deposited.


THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.


WAVERLEY NOVELS.

The new edition, (of which Waverley has just appeared,) is, without exception, the handsomest book of the day, in editorship, literary and graphic embellishment or typography. Perhaps little persuasion was necessary for a second reading of so delightful a novel as Waverley, but the author's piquant notes to the present edition would alike tempt the matter-of-fact man, and the inveterate novel reader to "begin again." The prefatory anecdotes to Waverley are extremely interesting—and the little autobiographic sketches are so many leaves from the life of the ingenious author. We hope to introduce a few of the notes of the Series; but content ourselves for the present with the following: being the original of the legend of Mrs. Grizel Oldbuck:

Mr. R——d of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes.) Mr. R——d was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these lands from the titular, and therefore that the present prosecution was groundless. But after an industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this resolution, and with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose. His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr. R——d thought that he had informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief. "You are right, my son," replied the paternal shade; "I did acquire right to these teinds, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr. ——, a writer (or attorney,) who is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never on any other occasion transacted business on my account. It is very possible," pursued the vision, "that Mr. —— may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token, that when I came to pay his account, there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern." Mr. R——d awaked in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there, he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man; without saying any thing of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them; so that Mr. R——d carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing. The author has often heard this story told by persons who had the best access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived, and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot therefore refuse to give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping thoughts. On the other hand, few would suppose that the laws of nature were suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr. R——d a certain number of hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream was only the recapitulation of information which Mr. R——d had really received from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost during their waking hours. It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad consequences to Mr. R——d, whose health and spirits were afterwards impaired

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