140 MORALS OF THE TAHAITIANS. 
vigilance and precaution, few days passed. with- 
out something being stolen. The young, beau- 
tiful, and noble Marorai stole, as the younger 
Forster relates, a pair of sheets from the cabin 
of an officer, where she had remained unnoticed 
during the general confusion occasioned by the 
ship running aground. Even the princesses 
appropriated trifles whenever they had an oppor- 
tunity. Our experience, however, proves that 
the lessons they have received from their Chris- 
tian pastors on the disgracefulness of theft have 
had a practically good effect. 
Neither can I deny that the morals of the 
Tahaitians were very exceptionable in another 
point, in which also the influence of the Missio- 
naries has been beneficially exerted. If the 
modesty which conceals the mysteries of love 
among civilized nations be the offspring only of 
their intellectual culture, it is not surprising 
that a wholly uninstructed people should be in- 
sensible to such a feeling, and in its unconscious- 
ness should even have established public solem- 
nities which would strike us as excessively in- 
delicate. 
The coarse hospitality of the Tahaitians went 
