THE MARIAN-A ISLANDS. 83 



Shall we credit this assertion as that of former 

 navigators? it is now quite altered since the time 

 of Anson (1742,) and Duclesmeur (I772.) The 

 present inhabitants no longer know the sea, are 

 no mariners, no swimmers ; they have ceased to 

 build boats. Tliey now scarcely hollow out, without 

 skill, the trunks of trees to fish within the breakers. 

 It is the inhabitants of the Carolinas, (Lamureck, 

 Ulea, &c.) who, since the pilot Luito from Lamu- 

 reck, in 1788, re-discovered Waghal (Guahon) for 

 his islands, come every year, since 1805, with a 

 trading fleet to Guahon, and provide the Spaniards 

 with the requisite boats, which they build on their 

 islands, in exchange for iron. It is also they who, 

 in their own boats, forward the messages from the 

 governor to Tinian and Saypan, and maintain the 

 otherwise difficult communication betw'een the 

 Mariana islands. 



There are here at present about ten or twelve 

 of these Carolinian boats, and nobody remembers 

 that similar ones were ever built at Guahon. Have 

 not foreign boats deceived former navigators ? 

 Carolinian boats have been cast here in all times, 

 and particularly, in the year I76O — 70, a boat from 

 Eap, for so far our accounts, founded on recollec- 

 tion, go back. 



The present inhabitants of Guahon have been 

 transformed into Spaniards.* They live and dress 



* We expressed a wish to be acquainted with the peculiar 

 manners, plays, dances, of the natives ; and the Governor had 



G '2 



