The World of Waters, Or, A Peaceful Progress O'er the Unpathed SeaOsborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)
General
The World of Waters, Or, A Peaceful Progress O'er the Unpathed Sea
Osborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)
Geography -- Juvenile literature; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile literature
MR. WILTON. "In that case I will undertake to run over the Ladrones,
sometimes called the Marianne Isles. There are twenty of them; but
only five are inhabited, and they lie in the south extremity of the
cluster. They are so close together, and so broken and irregular in
their form and position, as to appear like fragments disjointed from
each other, at remote periods, by some sudden convulsion of nature.
The coasts consist for the most part of dark brown rocks,
honey-combed in many places by the action of the waves. The islands
are fertile, abounding in hogs, cattle, horses, mules, and many
other agreeable things; while in order that, like other countries in
this sublunary world, they may lay claim to a portion of
disagreeables, they are infested with mosquitoes and endless
varieties of loathsome insects; and the fish that are found around
the coasts are not fit for food. So much for the country--now for
the natives:--They are tall, robust, and active; the men wear
scarcely any covering, and the women only a petticoat of matting.
Both sexes stain their teeth black, and many of them tattoo their
bodies. The Ladrone Islands were originally discovered by Magellan,
who called them 'las Islas de las Ladrones' or the islands of
thieves; because the Indians stole everything made of iron within
their reach. At the latter end of the seventeenth century, they
obtained the name of Marianne from the Queen of Spain, who sent
missionaries thither to propagate the Christian religion. Guajan is
the largest island of the group. Near the Ladrones lies the famous
pyramidal rock called 'Lot's wife.' A sea neither broken nor
interrupted for an immense space in all directions, here dashes with
sublime violence on the solid mass which rises almost
perpendicularly to a height of 350 feet. On the south-east side is a
deep cavern, where the waves resound with a prodigious noise."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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