PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 165 



afford us the opportunity of ascertaining if this were 

 their practice also, but we noticed the precaution of 

 exposing the bodies upon frames three or four feet 

 above the ground, that the air might freely cir- 

 culate about them, and of keeping them well covered 

 with folds of cloth. It is remarkable that none of 

 these bodies had any offensive smell, not even those 

 that had been recently exposed upon the drying- 

 board. Lieutenant Belcher, whose duty carried him 

 a great deal about the islands, saw some bodies that 

 were exposed to dry, covered with a matted shed to 

 protect them from the rain ; and in one he found 

 the head and right arm separated from the trunk, 

 wrapped in separate pieces of cloth, and secured by 

 a lashing to the body. On no part of the shore did 

 we see skulls or bones exposed and heaped together, 

 as about the morais common to Polynesia; and al- 

 though Mr. Belcher found some human bones partly 

 burned lying loose upon a rock, together with a 

 body deposited in a grave with a wicker-Work frame 

 over it, there is every reason to believe that these 

 exposures are very rare indeed, and that almost all 

 the bodies are wrapped in cloth, and deposited as 

 first described. This custom furnishes a satisfactory 

 reason for their cloth being so scarce; and though 

 we cannot commend their policy in clothing the 

 dead at the expence of the living, yet they must 

 be allowed the merit due to their generosity and 

 respect for their departed friends. 



On the 7th I visited a village at the south extre- 

 mity of Belcher Island. It was situated in a little 

 bay, at the foot of a ridge of hills which intersected 

 the island. We were received by about a dozen 

 men and women, who behaved in a very friendly 



