If you show such a contempt of death, in deference to a
custom founded in mere caprice, can it be wondered that a woman should
show it, in the first paroxysms of her grief for the loss of him to
whom was devoted every thought, word, and action of her life, and who,
next to her God, was the object of her idolatry? My dear Atterley,' he
continued, with emotion, 'you little know the strength of woman's
love!'"
Other topics of interest are also discussed with the like ingenuity.
After this episode, it is time for us to return to our travellers,
whose feelings, the moment they touched the ground, repayed them for
all they had endured. Atterley looked around with the most intense
curiosity; but nothing he saw, "surprised him so much, as to find so
little that was surprising:"--vegetation, insects, and other animals,
were pretty much of the same character as those he had before seen;
but, on better acquaintance, he found the difference greater than he
had at first supposed. Having refreshed themselves with the remains of
their stores, and secured the door of the machine, they bent their
course to the town of Alamatua, about three miles distant, which
seemed to contain about two thousand houses, and to be not quite as
large as Albany; the people were tall and thin, and of a pale,
yellowish complexion; their garments light, loose, and flowing, and
not very different from those of the Turks; they subsist chiefly on a
vegetable diet, live about as long as we do on the earth,
notwithstanding the great difference of climate, and other
circumstances; and do not, in their manners, habits, or character,
differ more from the inhabitants of this globe, than some of the
latter do from one another; their government, anciently monarchical,
is now popular; their code of laws very intricate; their language,
naturally soft and musical, has been yet further refined by the
cultivation of letters; and they have a variety of sects in religion,
politics, and philosophy.
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