At eleven o'clock we perceived to the westward a canoe rowing off to us: it had an outrigger, and was paddled along by eight Indians; and I was much struck by a white flag it had hoisted, a token of peace that led me to expect some European on board of it. My expectations were soon confirmed. There was an Englishman in the boat, who at first had quite the appearance of one of the islanders; his dress being entirely in their fashion, consisting merely of a girdle round the waist. He shewed me the certificates of two Americans, (to whom he had been of assistance during their stay here, particularly by procuring them wood and water,) in which it was attested that he had conducted himself well; and he offered me his service, which I readily accepted, being glad to procure so good an interpreter, by whose assistance I hoped to obtain some particular information upon this almost unknown island. This Englishman, whose name was Roberts, told us that he had been seven years upon the island, and two years previously in that of Santa Christina; that he had been put on shore on the latter, out of an English merchant-ship, the crew of which had mutinied against their captain, and could not prevail upon him to join their party, and in Nukahiwa he had lately married a relation of the King's, by which he acquired great consideration; so that it would be very easy for him to be of assistance

to us.'

We had scarcely let go our anchor, when the ship was surrounded by several hundred of the inhabitants, who brought cocoanuts, bread-fruit, and bananas for sale. The only things we could give them in exchange were pieces of old iron hoops, four or five inches long, with which I had supplied both ships for this purpose while we lay at Cronstadt. Such a piece was usually the price of five cocoa-nuts and three or four of the bread-fruit; but though they seemed to set a very high value on these, axes and hatchets were the chief objects of their wishes. They shewed a childish joy on receiving even a small piece of iron hoop, and usually evinced their satisfaction by a loud laugh, displaying their newly acquired riches with an air of triumph to their less fortunate companions, who swam round the ship.

At four in the afternoon the King and his suite came on board. His name was Tapega Kettenowee. He was a very strong, well made man, with a thick and extremely fat neck, from forty to fortyfive years of age. His body was tatooed with a dark colour approaching to black, so completely, that it even extended to spots on his head from which the hair had been cut away. He was in no wise to be distinguished from the lowest of his subjects; being, with the exception of the tschiabu *, entirely naked. I led him to my cabin, and gave him a knife and a piece of red cloth about twenty ells long, which he immediately bound round his loins. To his suite, consisting chiefly of his relations, I also made some presents, although Roberts advised me not to be so generous, telling me that not one of them, not even the King, would ever make me any return for them. At

Tschiabu is the girdle which the savages wear round their waist; in the Sandwich isles it is called maro.'

this time I imagined that the King's authority here was equal to that of the sovereigns of the Sandwich and Society islands; but I was soon convinced of the contrary.

At sunset all the men without exception went on shore; but about 100 of the females still remained near the ship, round which they had been swimming during five hours. In this time they had made use of every art in their power to declare the object of their visit, nor could they doubt that their wishes were understood, since neither their pantomime nor their attitudes could be mistaken.—This debasement of the female sex is less occasioned by levity or ungovernable passion in them, than by their duty to the unnatural and tyrannical orders of their husbands and fathers, who sent off their wives and daughters to procure small pieces of iron and other trifles, and in the morning were seen swimming out to meet them and take possession of the treasures which they had obtained.'

Next morning, Captain K. had the honour of a visit from the whole royal family, females as well as males. When he took them into his cabin, they were wonderfully pleased with the sight of a painting of his wife; and still more with a large mirror in which they were able to view their persons at full length, and which caught the King's fancy so much that, in every subsequent visit, he immediately repaired to the cabin, and stood before the glass for whole hours. On the second day, the Captain went on shore, accompanied by the ambassador, by most of his officers, and by a well armed escort. They were received by a large concourse of people of both sexes; and, on entering the royal dwelling, Captain Krusenstern sat down among the females, who examined his hands, his clothes, his hat, the embroidery of his uniform, &c. with much curiosity. Mats being spread, a repast of cocoa-nuts and bananas with water was put before them; and, as a farther proof of friendship, assistance was given by the natives to the sailors who were employed in replenishing the water-casks. This harmony, however, was on the point of receiving a serious interruption. The King having come to the ship in the morning of the twelfth of May, and remained some hours, intelligence was brought that the islanders were in a state of great confusion, and had taken up arms on the circulation of a report that their chief had been put in irons on board. This tumult, it was afterward ascertained, had been excited by a Frenchman of the name of Cabrit, who had been long resident on the island, and who was exceedingly mortified at the confidence placed by Captain K. in his rival, Roberts. Fortunately, explanations took place, and the dreaded insurrection was appeased without bloodshed: but the Captain cannot forego the opportunity of moralizing (p. 111, 112.) on the inveterate hatred of the French and English, and on the calamities of which it is pro

ductive to the rest of the world. In the present case, it is clear that the balance of respectability was decidedly on the side of our countryman; against whom his Gallic rival could substantiate no other charge than a refusal to participate in the fashionable thefts of the community. The Frenchman, on the other hand, had rendered himself, in the course of ten years, a perfect savage in his mode of living, in his amusements, and even in his plan of warfare; with the single exception of abstaining from the abominable practice of cannibalism.

An

The Nukahiwers are invariably of a large stature, and well made; they are very muscular, with a long handsome neck; have a great regularity of countenance, and an air of real goodness which was not belied by their dealings with us: but when we consider the cruelties of which these men are capable, the prejudice in their favour which the beauty of their person is very likely to create, soon vanishes, and their countenance seems to indicate nothing but apathy. animated eye none of them possess. By tatooing their bodies very much, and rubbing them with a dark colour, they acquire a black appearance; otherwise their natural colour is clear, at least that of the boys and women who are not tatooed, was so; nor do they differ very much from the colour of Europeans, being only rather more yellow. These islanders are besides remarkable for having no de formed persons among them, none of us at least saw any, and their bodies are besides very free from biles and sores, owing to their great temperance; for the custom of drinking kava, so common to all the islands of this ocean, and the immoderate use of which is so prejudicial to the health, as frequently to occasion a distortion of the body, is only known here to a few, and is never observed but with the greatest temperance. The Nukahiwers are in the enviable possession of the most constant health, and they have hitherto been so fortunate as to escape the venereal disease: as they are free from complaint, so they are ignorant of all medicine. Their fear of the kaha, a species of charm supposed to produce sickness, and of which I shall speak hereafter, increases, perhaps, by its influence on the imagination, any disposition to illness; but its remedy, the removal of the charm, sufficiently distinguishes it from common disease; and their whole medical system consists in binding up wounds, in which the King is said to be particularly skilful.

Among the very handsome people of this island, we observed two in particular who excited the admiration of us all. The one was a great warrior of Tayo Hoae, and, at the same time, what, in the language of the country, is called Fire-lighter to the King; his name was Mau-ha-u, and he was perhaps one of the handsomest men that

* I can only speak of the inhabitants of this island whom I know: but the description of the Nukahiwer will refer equally to the natives of all the group of Washington, as well as Mendoza islands, among whom there is a perfect resemblance in language, government, manners, and customs.'

ever existed he was six feet two inches high, and every part of his body perfectly beautiful. The other was Bauting, King of the vale of Schegua, who, notwithanding his age, for he certainly was not less than fifty, was still extremely handsome.

The women all looked well; at least nothing could be said against their countenances. A well proportioned head, a face rather round than long, a large sparkling eye, blooming colour, very good teeth, curled hair, which they ornamented with a white band, in a manner very becoming to them all, and the remarkably clear colour of their bodies, may perhaps entitle them to a preference over the inhabitants of the Sandwich, Society, and Friendly Islands; yet an impartial eye might perceive many faults in them, which the companions of Men. dana and Marchand either overlooked, or would not discover. Their form, for instance, is any thing but beautiful; their person is generally short, and without carriage, and this is the case even with girls of eighteen; their gait is likewise aukward and unsteady, and their lower stomach particularly large: their ideas of beauty must be very different from ours, otherwise they would take more pains to conceal their defects; a piece of stuff of middling size, wrapped carelessly round them, being the only covering, and that an incomplete one, of their beauties as well as their imperfections.'

It is a curious fact in the state of society among these savages, that their chief, or king, (as voyagers choose to call him,) possesses very little authority. He is not distinguished by dress from the lowest of his subjects; and, should he venture to give a blow, he would no doubt meet with a similar return. In war, he may have a kind of command: but, from the insulated nature of the operations of these people, it is probably of a very limited nature. The want of controul in the executive power prevents justice from being administered; so that, in this strange community, stealing not only goes unpunished, but forms a matter of boast. Murder alone brings down vengeance on the perpetrator; not, however, by the power or in the name of the society, but from the relations of the slain, who are determined on having blood for blood. The priests possess great influence over these islanders, and are accounted the only persons capable of giving effect to those charms, of the potency of which the belief is universal among them. To calculate the population of the island of Nukahiwa, which is upwards of sixty miles in circumference, was no easy matter: but Captain K. estimates it (p. 178.) at 12,000. They are divided into several tribes, under their respective chiefs, and are accustomed to make war on each other in the most disgusting manner :

They seldom meet in large parties in the field; but their usual mode of warfare is, to be constantly watching for, and secretly secking to butcher their prey, which they devour on the spot. He

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who evinces the greatest skill in these arts, who can lie the longest on his belly perfectly motionless, who can breathe the lowest, run the swiftest, and spring with the greatest agility from one precipice to another, acquires no less reputation among his comrades, than the brave and powerful Mau-ha-u. In all these attainments the Frenchman particularly excelled, and he has since frequently amused us with a relation of his exploits, and of the numbers whom he has slain, in this mode of warfare; entering into a particular detail of all the circumstances. Their arms consist of clubs, spears, and slings. The clubs are about five feet long, of casuarina wood, beautifully polished, and very massy, not weighing less than ten pounds; and at their extremity is a carved human head. The spears are of the same wood, ten or twelve feet long, about an inch thick in the middle, and sharp at each end. Their slings are simply a woven band, broad and flat in the middle to admit the stone.'

The two Europeans whom we found here, and who had both resided with them for several years, agreed in their assertions, that the natives of Nukahiwa were a cruel intractable people, and, without even the exception of the female sex, very much addicted to cannibalism; that the appearance of content and good humour, with which they had so much deceived us, was not their true character; and that nothing but the fear of punishment, and the hopes of reward, deterred them from giving a loose to their savage passions.'

In times of famine the men butcher their wives and children, and their aged parents; they bake and stew their flesh, and devour it with the greatest satisfaction. Even the tender looking female, whose eyes beam nothing but beauty, will join, if permitted, in this horrid repast. Can such people then be defended? Can any one join with George Forster in asserting that the islanders of the South Sea are a good natured, mild, and uncontaminated people? Fear alone prevents their murdering and devouring every stranger who arrives. As a proof of this, I need only relate, that some years ago an American merchant-ship put into Port Anna Maria, and the captain, who was a Quaker, suffered his people to go on shore unarmed; but the natives no sooner perceived their defenceless condition, than they assembled in order to attack and drag them into the mountains. Roberts succeeded, with the greatest difficulty, and with the assistance of the King, to whom he represented the treachery of their conduct, and the consequence it would infallibly bring upon the whole island, in rescuing them out of the hands of these cannibals. Nor did we ourselves want a proof of their being denied every feeling of justice and goodness; for although, during our stay, no one had ever shewn them the least ill will, but, on the contrary, every possible kindness, in order to inspire them with benevolence, if not with gratitude, our conduct seemed to have quite a different effect upon them. A report had spread that one of our ships had struck, occasioned by our being obliged, while in the act of sailing out, to bring up close to the shore, as I have related in the seventh chapter. In less than two hours a number of the islanders had assembled on the beach close to the ship, all armed with clubs, axes, and spears. What then could be their intention but to plunder and murder us? The Frenchman too, who

came