490 GENERAL CHARACTER. 



measure from their not being able perfectly to understand 

 each other, Captain Cook and his officers lived with the 

 natives "in the most cordial friendship/' and took leave of 

 them with great regret. Mr. Ellis, on the contrary, assures 

 us that " no portion of the human race was ever perhaps sunk 

 lower in brutal licentiousness and moral degradation than 

 this isolated people/'* Such a statement is surely quite 

 inconsistent with the account he gives of their anxiety to 

 possess copies of the Bible when it was translated into their 

 language. "They were," he says, "deemed by them more 

 precious than gold yea, than much fine gold," and " became 

 at once the constant companion of their possessors, and the 

 source of their highest enjoyment." ( 



The inhabitants of the Friendly, or Tonga, and of the 

 Sandwich Islands, are also very well described by Captain 

 Cook, but they belonged to the same race as those of Tahiti 

 and New Zealand, and resembled them in religion, language, 

 canoes, houses, weapons, food, habits, etc. It is somewhat 

 remarkable that the Sandwich Islanders, in many respects, as 

 for instance in their dances, houses, tattooing, etc., resembled 

 the New Zealanders even more than their nearer neighbours 

 in the Society and Friendly Islands. In the Friendly Islands 

 Captain Cook observed a very singular luxury in which the 

 chiefs indulged themselves. When one of them wished to go 

 to sleep, two women came and sat by him, " beating briskly 

 on his body and legs with both fists, as on a drum, till he fell 

 asleep, and continuing it the whole night, with some short 

 intervals." When the chief is sound aleep they sometimes 

 rest themselves a little, " but resume it if they observe any 

 appearance of his waking." J A similar statement is made by 

 Wilson in his Missionary Voyage. In all the islands the 

 chiefs appear to have been treated with respect, none the less 



* Ellis, 1. c. vol. ii. p. 25. t Third Voyage, vol. i. p. 323. 



t Ibid. vol. i. pp. 393408. 1. c. p. 237. 



