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