1777* THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 141 



easiness ; as they constantly refer pain from grief, 

 anxious desire, and other affections, to the bowels, 

 as its seat ; where they likewise suppose all operations 

 of the mind are performed. Their language admits 

 of that inverted arrangement of words which so 

 much distinguishes the Latin and Greek from most 

 of our modern European tongues, whose imperfec- 

 tions require a more orderly construction, to prevent 

 ambiguities. It is so copious, that for tfie bread- 

 fruit alone, in its different states, they have above 

 twenty names ; as many for the iaro root ; and about 

 ten for the cocoa nut. Add to this, that, besides 

 the common dialect, they often expostulate, in a kind 

 of stanza or recitative, which is answered in the 

 same manner. 



Their arts are few and simple ; yet, if we may 

 credit them, they perform cures in surgery which 

 our extensive knowledge in that branch has not, as 

 yet, enabled us to imitate. In simple fractures, they 

 bind them up with splints ; but if part of the sub- 

 stance of the bone be lost, they insert a piece of 

 wood between the fractured ends, made hollow like 

 the deficient part. In five or six days, the rapaoo, 

 or surgeon, inspects the wound, and finds the wood 

 partly covered with the growing flesh. In as many 

 more days, it is generally entirely covered ; after 

 which, when the patient has acquired some strength, 

 he bathes in the water, and recovers. We know that 

 wounds will heal over leaden bullets ; and sometimes, 

 though rarely, over other extraneous bodies. But what 

 makes me entertain some doubt of the truth of so ex- 

 traordinary skill, as in the above instance, is, that in 

 other cases which fell under my own observation, 

 they are far from being so dexterous. I have seen 

 the stump of an arm, which was taken off after being 

 shattered by a fall from a tree, that bore no marks of 

 skilful operation, though some allowance be made 

 for their defective instruments. And I met with a 

 man going about with a dislocated shoulder, some 



