146 cook's voyage to dec. 



sort become pregnant, he may kill the child; and, 

 after that, either continue his connection with the mo- 

 ther, or leave her. But if he should adopt the child, 

 and suffer it to live, the parties are then considered 

 as in the married state, and they commonly live to- 

 gether ever after. However, it is thought no crime 

 in the man to join a more youthful partner to his first 

 wife, and to live with both. The custom of changing 

 their connections is, however, much more general than 

 this last ; and it is a thing so common, that they 

 speak of it with great indifference. The Erreoes are 

 only those of the better sort, who, from their fickle- 

 ness, and their possessing the means of purchasing a 

 succession of fresh connections, are constantly roam- 

 ing about ; and, from having no particular attach- 

 ment, seldom adopt the more settled method men- 

 tioned above. And so agreeable is this licentious 

 plan of life to their disposition, that the most beauti- 

 ful of both sexes thus commonly spend their youthful 

 days, habituated to the practice of enormities which 

 would disgrace the most savage tribes ; but are pecu- 

 liarly shocking amongst a people whose general cha- 

 racter, in other respects, has evident traces of the 

 prevalence of humane and tender feelings.* When 



* That the Caroline Islands are inhabited by the same tribe or 

 nation, whom Captain Cook found, at such immense distances, 

 spread throughout the South Pacific Ocean, has been satisfactorily 

 established in some preceding notes- The situation of the Ladrones, 

 or Marianne Islands, still further north than the Carolines, but at 

 no great distance from them, is favourable, at first sight, to the 

 conjecture, that the same race also peopled that cluster ; and on 

 looking into Father Le Gobien's History of them, this conjecture ap- 

 pears to be actually confirmed by direct evidence. One of the great- 

 est singularities of the Otaheite manners is the existence of the so- 

 ciety of young men, called Erroes, of whom some account is given 

 in the preceding paragraph. Now we learn from Father le Gobien, 

 that such a society exists also amongst the inhabitants of the La- 

 drones. His words are, Les Urritoes sont parmi eux les jeunes gens 

 qui vivent avec des maitrcsscs, sans 'couloir s engager dans les liens 

 du marriage. That there should be young men in the Ladrones, as 

 well as in Otaheite, who live voith mistresses, without being inclined 

 to enter into the married state, would not, indeed, furnish the sha- 

 dow of any peculiar resemblance between them. But that the young 



