Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

beyond the time necessary, keeping in view the cause which led to their seeking refuge.

ARTICLE 14.—The contracting parties mutually agree to surrender, upon official requisition, to the authorities of each, all persons who, being charged with the crimes of murder, piracy, arson, robbery, forgery, or the utterance of forged paper, committed within the jurisdiction of either, shall be found within the territories of the other; provided that this shall only be done upon such evidence of criminality as, according to the laws of the place where the person so charged shall be found, would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial if the crime had there been committed; and the respective judges and other magistrates of the two governments shall have authority, upon complaint made under oath, to issue a warrant for the apprehension of the person so charged, that he may be brought before such judges or other magistrates respectively, to the end that the evidence of criminality may be heard and considered; and if on such hearing the evidence be deemed sufficient to sustain the charge, it shall be the duty of the examining judge or magistrate to certify the same to the proper executive authority, that a warrant may issue for the surrender of such fugitive. The expense of such apprehension and delivery shall be borne and defrayed by the party who makes the requisition and receives the fugitive.

ARTICLE 15.-So soon as steam or other mail packets under the flag of either of the contracting parties shall have commenced running between their respective ports of entry, the contracting parties agree to receive at the post-offices of those ports all mailable matter, and to forward it as directed, the destination being to some regular post-office of either country; charging thereupon the regular postal rates as established by law in the territories of either party receiving said mailable matter, in addition to the original postage of the office whence the mail was sent. Mails for the United States shall be made up at regular intervals at the Hawaiian post-office, and dispatched to ports of the United States, the postmasters at which ports shall open the same, and forward the inclosed matter as directed, crediting the Hawaiian Government with their postages as established by law and stamped upon each manuscript or printed sheet.

All mailable matter destined for the Hawaiian Islands shall be received at the several post-offices in the United States, and forwarded to San Francisco or other ports on the Pacific coast of the United States, whence the postmasters shall dispatch it by the regular mail-packets to Honolulu, the Hawaiian Government agreeing on their part to receive and collect for, and credit the post-office department of the United States with, the United States rates charged thereupon. It shall be optional to prepay postage on letters in either country, but postage on printed sheets and newspapers shall in all cases be prepaid. The respective post-office departments of the contracting parties shall, in

THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC.

349

their accounts, which are to be adjusted annually, be credited with all dead letters returned.

ARTICLE 16.-The present treaty shall be in force from the date of the exchange of the ratifications for the term of ten years, and further, until the end of twelve months after either of the contracting parties shall have given notice to the other of its intention to terminate the same, each of the said contracting parties reserving to itself the right of giving such notice at the end of the said term of ten years, or at any subsequent term.

Any citizen or subject of either party infringing the articles of this treaty shall be held responsible for the same, and the harmony and good correspondence between the two governments shall not be interrupted thereby, each party engaging in no way to protect the offender or sanction such violation.

ARTICLE 17.-The present treaty shall be ratified by the President of the United States of America, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the said States, and by His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, by and with the advice of his Privy Council of State, and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Honolulu within eighteen months from the date of its signature, or sooner if possible.

In witness whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed the same in triplicate, and have thereto affixed their seals. Done at Washington, in the English language, the twentieth day of December, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine.

JOHN M. CLAYTON,

JAMES JACKSON JARVES.

And whereas we have carefully examined all the points and articles thereof, by and with the advice of our Privy Council of State, we have confirmed and ratified the foregoing treaty, and we do confirm and ratify the same in the most effectual manner, promising on our faith and word as King, for us and our successors, to fulfil and observe it faithfully and scrupulously in all its clauses.

In faith of which we have signed this ratification with our own hand, and have affixed thereto the great seal of our kingdom.

Given at our palace of Honolulu, this nineteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, and in the twenty-fifth of our reign.

KEONI ANA.

KAMEHAMEHA.

By the King and the Premier.

R. C. WYLLIE,

Minister of Foreign Relations.

EXCHANGE OF RATIFICATIONS.

We the undersigned, Robert Crichton Wyllie, Minister of Foreign Relations of his Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, and Charles Bunker, Consul of the United States for Lahaina, having been authorized by our respective governments to exchange the ratifications of the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation between his Hawaiian Majesty and the United States, concluded and signed at Washington, on the twentieth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, certify,

That we have this day met for that purpose, and after comparing the said ratifications each with the other, and both with the original of said treaty, have effected the exchange accordingly.

In witness whereof, we have signed this certificate, at Honolulu, this twenty-fourth day of August, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, and have thereunto affixed our respective seals.

R. C. WYLLIE,

CHARLES BUNKER.

NOTE A, p. 196.

THE late researches of Professor Agassiz into the world of corals naturally suggest the inquiry whether the coral insect may not yet be employed by man for the construction of sea-walls and reefs, in places within or near the tropics, where they are needed. He has succeeded in obtaining living specimens of the coral zoophyte, and carefully preserving them so as to study at his leisure their habits and motions. Why, then, as we employ the silkworm and furnish it with food and material to spin for us our silks, and as we plant and form beds of oysters in favorable locations, where we please, why may we not also employ the agency of the coral lithophyte to lay the foundations, for instance, of a light-house, or to form a breakwater where one is needed? Such a practical result is by no means improbable from the minute and scientific observations now making upon the busy little builders of the deep.

The coral reefs of Florida have been carefully examined by Professor Agassiz, and he finds them to be barrier reefs, extending from the Tortugas to the mainland, conforming generally to the outline of the shore. Lagoon or circular reefs also occur, but there is no evidence there of the subsidence or elevation observed in the Pacific Ocean; these are only 12 or 13 feet above the level of the sea. The Florida reefs consist of the Astrea and Porites at the bottom, in a depth of from 60 to 100 feet. They are large hemispherical masses, some of them 12 feet in diameter, and containing 4,000,000 of individual polyps. Next succeeds the Me

THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC.

351

andrina, which is also hemispherical in form, and sometimes 13 feet in diameter. At the top is found the Madrepore, of much harder texture than the preceding. It can exist only where the water is in constant motion, and thoroughly commingled with air-i. e. in a breaker or surfthey die in quiet waters.

Throughout the whole extent of the Florida reef, openings occur, and produce islands called Keys, from one to fifteen miles long, and covered with a tropical vegetation. The reefs suffer abrasion by the action of the sea, and are broken up on a large scale by the perforations of shell-fish and marine worms. The coral sand which results from the attrition of the reefs is cemented by the carbonate of lime dissolved in the water, and a firm limestone is formed exhibiting indications of stratification, but little or no trace of original organic structure. Professor Agassiz has formerly spent much time in the careful study of the remarkable geological formation of the Oolitic-Jura limestone. He found that the resemblances presented by these Florida reefs were so strong that he could not doubt that the Jura limestone had such an origin. The southern portion of the peninsula consists of ancient reefs, (huinmocks,) and intervening levels, low and marshy, (everglades,) the whole having been won from the ocean by the coral polyps.

These reefs are regarded with terror by the navigators, but behind them lie the wreckers, in quiet waters, while the storm rages without. With light-houses and appropriate beacons the openings through the reefs might furnish safe harbors. In answer to a question whether this process of reef-building would continue, obliterating the channel and joining the West Indies to the mainland, Professor Agassiz gave it as his conviction that the limit is already attained; that the depth of water outside the present reefs is such as to prevent any more rising, but the present reefs may expand somewhat laterally.

The island of Molokai were as well worth the visit of an Agassiz, for the study of its corals, as of the Christian traveller for its institutions of religion. We commend it as a field of study both to Agassiz and Guyot, which they will find equal facilities for investigating, either as annexed to, or under the protectorate of the United States. The following is the latest view of it as a missionary field, contained in the August number of the Journal of Missions for 1851.

Seventeen years ago the inhabitants of Molokai, one of the Sandwich Islands, were living in a state of heathenism, which the officers of the United States Exploring Expedition represent as one of the most sunken in which any portion of the human race has ever been found. They had no civilization or letters; they scarcely had clothing or property of the lowest kind; they lived in miserable huts, so fashioned that Modesty could not find entrance to them; but in their deep degradation they had passions as evil and as strong as any other people.

The following year, 1835, their present missionary, Mr. Hitchcock, took up his abode among them. God has greatly blessed his labors. Through his instrumentality chiefly, a change has been effected, which it does not often fall to the lot of man to witness. There are many aspects in which this change might be exhibited, but none of them more suggestive than that of the liberality of the church.

For several years they have paid into the treasury of the Board more than enough to support their pastor. Last year they paid upwards of $500 to sustain him, contributed $700 at the monthly concert, and nearly $200 for other objects. From the beginning of the present year to March 20th, less than three months, they have contributed $210 at the monthly concert, and have subscribed $1800 for the repair of their meeting-house, besides paying $100 for a son of their pastor, whom they have adopted as their beneficiary, and intend to educate in this country.

Nor is this all. Owing to the broken surface of the island, valleys lying here and there between precipitous hills, numerous houses of worship are needed for their convenience. In one of these valleys the inhabitants, not more, all told, than two hundred and fifty in number, are building a house, which, in addition to their own labor in getting stone, timber, lime, sand, etc., will cost them not far from $900, cash. And yet they have contributed more than $50 at the monthly concert the first three months of the year, have paid their proportion of their pastor's salary, and have also given for their poor. In another deep and secluded ravine, with but little more than a hundred inhabitants, they have put up a fine house, and introduced American chairs, and are now raising money for a bell. The house in the plain of Kalaupapa was not well built, and the inhabitants are raising funds for a new one, having resolved to appropriate the other for a school-house. Besides all this, the people are building houses of worship in small neighborhoods, that they may meet in them for conference and prayer, their dwelling-houses not being convenient for such purpose. The members of the church, entirely of their own accord, have already built seven of these within three miles of the station in either direction, and are now at work on the eighth.

Here is a church the foundations of which were laid only half a generation back, in the midst of heathenism, and in one of its darkest and most degraded domains. The darkness has fled apace before the light which the Gospel brings, the degradation will soon be only a matter of history. This church makes abundant provision for its spiritual wants, and with a full hand is extending the blessings to others, which it knows so well how to prize. It is an example to be considered. How many churches now without a pastor because they feel unable to support one, or without a house of worship because they think themselves too poor to build one, would continue unsupplied, if this same spirit prevailed in them! How soon the means would be furnished for giving the Gospel to all the world, if every church possessed the same spirit of liberality !

« AnteriorContinuar »