50 



ETHNOGRAPHY. 



their knowledge of various arts, and having a more regular and arti- 

 ficial system of government, they are yet spoken of by all voyagers 

 as savages, and uniformly treated as such, while the Polynesians are 

 regarded rather as a semi-civilized race. Nor can there be any doubt 

 that this distinction, so universally and involuntarily made, is a just 

 one. Yet it is difficult to perceive, at the first view, the grounds on 

 which it rests. We shall be told that civilization belongs to the 

 character more than to the intellect ; but granting this to be correct, 

 we may still be at a loss to discover in what respect the Feejeeans 

 are inferior to the Polynesians. The portrait which we have had to 

 draw of the latter is by no means prepossessing. If the Feejeeans are 

 ferocious in war, without natural affection, parricides and cannibals, 

 there are few of the Polynesian tribes to whom the same description 

 will not apply. That proneness to sensuality, moreover, which is 

 common among the latter is wanting in the former, and the domestic 

 ties are more sacred among them. 



The truth perhaps is, that the difference in the character, as in the 

 physiognomy of the two races, lies not so much in any particular 

 trait, as in a general debasement of the whole, a lower grade of 

 moral feeling, and a greater activity of the evil passions. The Poly- 

 nesians seem to be cruel, dishonest, and selfish, rather because they 

 have always been so, and no better path has ever been opened to 

 them, than from any violent propensity to those vices. The proof of 

 this is found in the fact that a very brief intercourse with foreigners 

 has, in most cases, been sufficient to induce them to lay aside their 

 worst practices, and adopt many of the improvements of civilization. 

 But the Feejeeans are by nature and inclination a bloodthirsty, 

 treacherous, and rapacious people. Their evil qualities do not lie 

 merely on the surface of the character, but have their roots deep in 

 their moral organization. In forty years of intercourse with the same 

 class of civilized men to whom the Polynesians were indebted for 

 their earliest instructions in many valuable arts, they have learned 

 from them nothing but the use of firearms, and though no visiter 

 can have failed to express his horror at the customs of cannibalism, 

 infanticide, and human sacrifice, not the slightest effect has been pro- 

 duced upon the natives. The Feejeean may be said to differ from 

 the Polynesian as the wolf from the dog ; both, when wild, are per- 

 haps equally fierce, but the ferocity of the one may be easily subdued, 

 while that of the other is deep-seated and untameable. 



One quality, however, for which the Feejeeans are eminently distin- 



