"'American enterprise,' says a writer[7] who has been for many years familiar with the history and progress of the Hawaiian Islands, 'both commercial and philanthropic, has invested the group with its present political importance--bestowing upon the inhabitants laws, religion, and civilization--and will soon add to these gifts language; for the English tongue is rapidly superseding the Hawaiian. The Islanders have thus a moral claim upon the American nation for protection. In no way can this be more efficiently bestowed than by receiving them into the family of this great republic. The native population are as well prepared to be American citizens as the multitude of European emigrants. Unlike the generality of them, they can read and write, and have already acquired democratic ideas under the operation of their own liberal constitution of government, which will readily enable them to incorporate themselves under our institutions. They are destined to be supplanted in numbers and power by a foreign race. They desire us to be their successors and protectors. The present revenues of the Islands are more than adequate to the expenses of their government--time, opportunity, the interests of the inhabitants and ourselves point to this result.' Events will soon determine whether they are to retain their independency, or to be merged in the nation that has civilized them." The work abounds in interesting details of Island Life, and we regret that our limits will not permit us to enrich the _International_ with more liberal extracts. We can at present add but the following paragraphs on a sport for which the islanders have been celebrated ever since the days of Cook: "It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the evolutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players. The sport is so attractive and full of wild excitement to Hawaiians, and withal so healthful, that I cannot but hope it will be many years before civilization shall look it out of countenance, or make it disreputable to indulge in this manly though dangerous exercise. Many a man from abroad who has witnessed this exhilarating play, has no doubt only wished that he was free and able to share in it himself. For my part, I should like nothing better, if I could do it, than to get balanced on a board just before a great rushing wave, and so be hurried in half or a quarter of a mile landward with the speed of a race-horse, all the time enveloped in foam and spray, but without letting the roller break and tumble over my head.