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SANDWICH ISLANDS. 31
kingdom, had his family priest, who accompanied him to battle.
In Christian countries this class of men is called chaplains,
praying for victory through war, in the name of the
Prince of peace !
In the better period of these islanders, a falsehood was
considered a fearful offense, and foeticide was unknown.
The male child then born, and now also, takes the prefer-
This is the case in the Christian kingdoms of Europe.
ence.
Lunatics were supposed by these Sandwich Island people to
be obsessed by angry spirits.
In their old traditionary ages, the man had but one wife.
Marriage ceremonies, as such, were unknown. Wooing for
a season, the parties commenced Hving together, and, if
reciprocally pleasant, the union was understood to be permanent
;
if unhappy, however, they mutually agreed to separate.
If children were bom into their rude homes, it was then
considered disgraceful to annul the marital relation. They
are exceedingly fond of their children, and in every department
of life are naturally kind and generous.
Though doubtless true,
INTELLECTUAL DECLINE.
" That through the ages one unceasing purpose runs,"
still there are lost Edens of civilization and culture. If literature
and art, like the nationalities they crowned, have had
their ebb and flow, so civilized countries and island tribes
have had their golden ages now dead and buried. Extant
monuments, mammoth ruins, and exhumed scrolls, substantiate
the position.
Who has not been charmed while reading, in Baldwin's
" Pre-Historic America," of that ancient Peruvian road extending
over marshes, ravines, rocky precipices, and the great
chain of the Sierras, — strongly walled on each side, and
quite as long as the two Pacific railroads ? These macadamized
roads were constructed, according to Gomara, long