Looking Back: An AutobiographyRichardson, Merrick Abner
History
Looking Back: An Autobiography
Richardson, Merrick Abner
Richardson, Merrick Abner, 1841-
The citadel, or fort of the cannibal kings, is near the source of the
Helamano River, under the Koolauloa Mountain. It is about three or four
miles in circumference, protected by a perpendicular rock chasm nearly
one hundred feet high. The gully surrounding it must once have served
as an aqueduct, the water having been held back by the dam, which now,
and probably for ages, has served as a passageway into the ancient
rendezvous.
Standing there in the latter half of February looking west, the
scene is lovely beyond description. The green palms on the Koolauloa
Mountains serve as a background, while the Helamano River, with its
fringe of trees all in blossom, winds its way like a ribbon of white
roses away to the dreamy old Pacific Ocean, plain in view, but many
miles away. Then to feel the spell of silence, where tumult once
arose, we can but ask, "Is life a reality or a myth?" and a voice comes
back from the voiceless realms of the dead, they were like us, simply
passing through earth life.
SOUTH SEA ISLANDS AND AUSTRALIA
In a few weeks I found myself taking in the South Sea Islands, admiring
the pretty lagoons, those tiny inner-ocean retreats, where the
glistening sandy beach is strewn with miniature shells cozily protected
by the surrounding palm groves, upon whose outer shore the mighty waves
come pounding in only to recede without disturbing the finny tribes who
never venture outside of these inland tiny lagoons.
At Apia, in the Samoa group, where lies the body of Robert L.
Stevenson, I wondered not at his choice of selection for spending the
last days of his life. Here among the South Sea Islands he could muse
unmolested, far from the struggle for gain, and notoriety. There is a
beautiful side to those so-called barbarian lives, and one is tempted
to envy them their freedom as they laugh and sing in the bamboo shade,
and bathe at ease in the soft waves of the grand old Pacific Ocean.
One can but love them for their simplicity and confiding way as their
wistful smile pleads for your generosity and sympathy.
The wonder-land in the Friendly or South Sea Island is Tongo-Taboo.
Here one finds undoubted traces of a lost continent, in the way of an
archway, or portal, through which a people must have passed before the
dawn of Babylonian tradition. Two immense rectangular stone columns are
seen tied together at the top by an enormous slab, on which rests a
huge stone bowl, The entire structure must be nearly fifty feet high.
[Illustration: EASTER ISLAND.
THE DREAMLAND OF THE SOUTH SEAS. COULD THEY BUT SPEAK!]
There is no quarry on this little island from which it could have been
taken, neither could it have been brought from a distant land, for
ancient boats were not adequate.
The quarry from which it came, the mysteries of the people who such art
designed, and the homes in which they lived, must be nearby, beneath
the waves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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