The dawn was now breaking in the most beautiful colours--gold, purple,
crimson, and green--across the sea. All nature was still, save for the
first pipe of awakening birds.

There was a delicate fragrance in the air, which was at once soft and
keen, and, as I watched the red sunlight on the high cliffs, and on the
smooth trunks of the palm trees, I felt, strange to say, a kind of
reluctance to leave the island.

The people, apart from their cruel and abominable religion, were the
gentlest and most peaceful I have ever known. They were beautiful to
look upon, so finely made and shapely that I have never seen their like.
Their language was exquisitely sweet and melodious, and though, except
hymns, I do not care for poetry, yet I must admit that some of their
compositions in verse were extremely pleasing, though they were ignorant
of the art of rhyme. All about them was beautifully made, and they were
ignorant of poverty. I never saw a beggar on the island; and Christians,
unhappily, do not share their goods with each other, and with the poor,
so freely as did these benighted heathens. Often have I laboured to make
them understand what our Pauper Question means, but they could not
comprehend me.

"How can a man lack home, and food, and fire?" they would say; "do people
not love each other in your country?"

I explained that we love each other _as Christians_, but this did not
seem to enlighten their benighted minds. On the other hand, it is true
that they settle their population question by strangling or exposing the
majority of their infant daughters.