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In America the French, in India the English, and in Oceania the Dutch established counting-houses and offices, whilst missionaries endeavoured to win over to the Christian faith and modern ideas the unchangeable "Empire of the Mean."
On board the corvette another company of natives were conducting themselves with a calmness and reserve, offering a marked contrast to the usual manner of the greater part of the inhabitants of the lands of Oceania. The same impression was made on the French travellers during a visit paid to the rajah of the island, as also during his return visit on board the Coquille.
In Oceania, a number of archipelagos, of islands and separate islets, remained still to be discovered, but the islands of Sunda were colonized, the coasts of Australia and of New Zealand had been partially revealed, and the existence of that great continent which, according to Tasman, extended from Tierra del Fuego to New Zealand, began to be doubted; but it still required the long and careful researches of Cook to banish definitely into the domain of fable a chimera so long cherished.
Some centuries ago, driven out by feuds or shortness of food, they left their isles of reef and palm, and found their way to Ao-tea-roa, as they called New Zealand. On the map their new home seems at first sight so isolated and remote from the other groups of Oceania as to make it incredible that even the most daring canoe-men could have deliberately made their way thither.
Nails and pieces of iron were much sought after by these people, whom Kotzebue likens to the natives of Noukha-Hiva. They do not exactly tatoo themselves, but cover their bodies with large scars. A curious fashion not before noticed amongst the islanders of Oceania prevails amongst them.
In other lands, in the delightful isles of Oceania, in the old, lifeless quarters of Stamboul, it seemed as if mere words could never express all I felt, and I struggled vainly against my own inability to render, in human language, the penetrating charm surrounding me.
My friendly and intimate relations with primitive man, in Oceania and elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo work; and I had wished to carry away on me, as a curiosity, an ornament, a specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy of finish which is unequaled. From their albums spread out upon my table I make my choice.
Fifty years had now elapsed since the discovery of most of the islands of Oceania, and everywhere changes had taken place as sudden as those in the Sandwich Islands.
Translated and synopsized, by James A. Robertson, from Col. doc. inéd., as follows: Ultramar, ii, part i, pp. 1-94; Amér. y Oceania, pp. 117-209, and xiv, pp. 151-165. The Expedition of Ruy Lopez de Villalobos 1541-46 The documents thus abstracted are to be found in Col. doc. inéd. Ultramar, ii, part 1, pp. 1-94; and in Col. doc. inéd. Jalisco, March 28, 1541.
The two young men were sent to what was known as the "Five Divisions of the World," being composed of five cabins, Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Oceania. These five rooms were always reserved for guests, were built of pitchpine, and their windows gave directly on the sea.
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