Foreigners are apt to say that we children of this western world do not submit to the tender emotions with the same self-abandonment as those who are born nearer to the rising sun; that our hearts are as cold and selfish as our manners; and that we live more for the lower and grovelling passions, than for sentiment and the affections.  Most sincerely do we wish that every charge which European jealousy, and European superciliousness, have brought against the American character, was as false as this.  That the people of this country are more restrained in the exhibition of all their emotions, than those across the great waters, we believe; but, that the last feel the most, we shall be very unwilling to allow.  Most of all shall we deny that the female form contains hearts more true to all its affections, spirits more devoted to the interests of its earthly head, or identity of existence more perfect than those with which the American wife clings to her husband.  She is literally “bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh.”  It is seldom that her wishes cross the limits of the domestic circle, which to her is earth itself, and all that it contains which is most desirable.  Her husband and children compose her little world, and beyond them and their sympathies, it is rare indeed that her truant affections ever wish to stray.  A part of this concentration of the American wife’s existence in these domestic interests, is doubtless owing to the simplicity of American life and the absence of temptation.  Still, so devoted is the female heart, so true to its impulses, and so little apt to wander from home-feelings and home-duties, that the imputation to which there is allusion, is just that, of all others, to which the wives of the republic ought not to be subject.

It was even-tide before the governor was again seen among his people.  By this time, the immigrants had taken their first survey of the Reef, and the nearest islands, which the least sanguine of their numbers admitted quite equalled the statements they had originally heard of the advantages of the place.  It was, perhaps, fortunate that the fruits of the tropics were so abundant with Socrates and his companions.  By this time, oranges abounded, more than a thousand trees having, from time to time, been planted in and around the crater, alone.  Groves of them were also appearing in favourable spots, on the adjacent islands.  It is true, these trees were yet too young to produce very bountifully; but they had begun to bear, and it was thought a very delightful thing, among the fresh arrivals from Pennsylvania, to be able to walk in an orange grove, and to pluck the fruit at pleasure!