192 VOYAGE TO THE 



c "^ p - very few. After we quitted the islands, the sur- 

 ■<— v-*»> geon favoured me with the following report: — 



i* 8 26. " Among more than three hundred men, women, 



and children, who indiscriminately surrounded us 

 at the village on the 9th ; among those who had 

 previously come on board, and at other times, whe- 

 ther upon the shore or on their rafts ; we saw very 

 few labouring under any original deformity or annoy- 

 ing disease. The only case of mal-conformation was 

 a wide fissure in the palate of one man, whose speech 

 was considerably affected by it. No external mark 

 of cicatrization in the upper lip denoted that the 

 internal defect was the remains of a hare-lip or any 

 injury. One man had a very uneven and ragged 

 stump of the right arm, but without any discharge. 

 Another had a steatomatous tumour over one shoul- 

 der-blade, about the size of a billiard-ball. One dis- 

 ease was so common that I have no doubt it was 

 endemic : this was, patches of the lepra vulgaris, 

 which being void of any inflammatory appearance, 

 and confined to the back in all who were affected 

 with it, and in a considerable proportion of these to 

 a small space between the shoulders, appeared to 

 create no alarm, and most probably called forth no 

 curative application. The frequent and alternate 

 exposure of the men to the salt water and rays of the 

 sun, with a scanty supply of the anointing oil of the 

 cocoa-nut, would favour the breaking out of this cu- 

 taneous affection. The mats which they tied round 

 their necks, and frequently allowed to hang down 

 behind, whether through accident or design, would 

 tend to avert the effects of exposure. A few had 

 lost some of their front teeth ; and we saw one man, 

 on the 9th, with two uncicatrized and bare but clean 



