Ixviii INTRODUCTION. 



original fettlcnient there ; left intirely to their own powers 

 for every art of life ; and to their own remote traditions for 

 every political or religious cuflom or inftitution ; uninform- 

 ed by fcience ; unimproved by education ; in fliort, a fit foil 

 from whence a careful obferver could colled fads for form- 

 ing a judgment, how far unaffifted human nature will be 

 apt to degenerate ; and in what refpeds it can ever be able 

 to excel. Who could have thought, that the brutal ferocity 

 of feeding upon human flefh, and the horrid fuperftition 

 of offering human facrifices, fliould be found to exift 

 amongft the natives lately difcovered in the Pacific Ocean, 

 who, in other refpeds, appear to be no ftrangers to the fine 

 feelings of humanity, to have arrived at a certain ftage of 

 fecial life, and to be habituated to fubordination and go- 

 vernment which tend fo naturally to reprefs the ebullitions 

 of wild pafQon, and expand the latent powers of the 

 underftanding ? 



Or, if we turn from this melancholy pidure, which will 

 fugged copious matter for philofophical fpeculation, can 

 we, without afionifliment, obferve to what a degree of per- 

 fedion the fame tribe (and indeed we may here join, in 

 feme of thofe inftances, the American tribes vifited in the 

 courfe of the prefent voyage) have carried their favourite 

 amufements, the plaintive fongs of their women, their dra- 

 matic entertainments, their dances, their Olympian game&^ 

 as we may call them ; the orations of their Chiefs ; the 

 chants of their prieils ; the folemnity of their religious pro- 

 ceffions; their arts and manufadures J their ingenious con- 

 trivances to fupply the wantof proper materials, and of effec- 

 tive tools and machines.; and the wonderful produdions of 

 their perfevering labour under a complication of difadvan- 

 tages J their cloth and their mats ; their weapons] their fifh- 



