1779* THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 123 



cumstance which came to our knowledge, after the 

 death of my worthy and ingenious friend, viz. that 

 almost every native of these islands carried about 

 with him, either in his calibash, or wrapped up in a 

 piece of cloth, and tied about his waist, a small piece 

 of raw pork, highly salted, which they considered as 

 a great delicacy, and used now and then to taste of. 

 With respect to the confusion the young lad was in 

 (for he was not more than sixteen or eighteen years 

 of age), no one could have been surprized at it who 

 had seen the eager and earnest manner in which Mr. 

 Anderson questioned him. 



The argument drawn from the instrument made 

 with shark's teeth, and which is nearly of the same 

 form with those used at New Zealand for cutting up 

 the bodies of their enemies, is much more difficult to 

 controvert. I believe it to be an undoubted fact, 

 that this knife, if it may be so called, is never used 

 by them in cutting the flesh of other animals. How- 

 ever, as the custom of offering human sacrifices, and 

 of burning the bodies of the slain, is still prevalent 

 here, it is not improbable, that the use of this instru- 

 ment is retained in those ceremonies. Upon the 

 whole, I am strongly inclined to think, and particu- 

 larly from this last circumstance, that the horrid 

 practice in question has but lately ceased amongst 

 these and other islands of the South Sea. Omai, 

 when pressed on this subject, confessed, that, in the 

 rage and fury of revenge, they would sometimes tear 

 the flesh of their enemies, that were slain, with their 

 teeth ; but positively denied that they ever eat it. This 

 was certainly approaching as near the fact as could be; 

 but, on the other hand, the denial is a strong proof 

 that the practice has actually ceased; since in New 

 Zealand, where it still exists, the inhabitants never 

 made the smallest scruple of confessing it. 



The inhabitants of these islands differ from those 

 of the Friendly Isles, in suffering, almost universally, 

 their beards to grow. There were, indeed, a few, 



