74 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



islanders, on the other hand, have almost always received them with 

 a clamorous welcome and apparent friendship, and then made an 

 attempt to get possession, by force or fraud, of their vessel, or some of 

 their property. While the natives of Micronesia, though sometimes 

 shy at first, have seldom failed, in the end, to establish and maintain 

 an intercourse of uninterrupted friendship and mutual confidence. 

 The only exceptions, and those not numerous, have been in the cases 

 before noticed, where hardship and want, or an intermixture of foreign 

 blood, have deteriorated their character. 



In treating of the Polynesians, we have had occasion to remark that 

 they had probably attained, before their discovery, to as high a grade 

 of civilization as the circumstances in which they were placed would 

 permit. The same remark may be made concerning the natives of 

 Micronesia, but with this difference, that while the former appear to 

 have risen from a lower condition to their present state, the latter 

 seem, on the contrary, to have descended from a higher grade which 

 had been attained in some more favourable situation. As this view 

 (which is that of Lessou, and, in part, of Liitke,) is somewhat im- 

 portant, it is proper to state the considerations on which it is founded. 



1. Although the Caroline islanders are not more ingenious or more 

 enterprising than the Polynesians, and although, on the whole, they 

 seem to enjoy no more of the comforts of life, yet in many of the arts, 

 and what may be termed sciences, they are decidedly superior. Those 

 relating to navigation deserve particular notice. The latter of the 

 two races, in their voyages, are usually guided by the winds, and pay 

 little attention to the heavenly bodies. The Micronesians, on the 

 other hand, sail altogether by the stars, with which they are well 

 acquainted. They divide the horizon into twenty-eight points, instead 

 of the thirty-two of our compasses, giving to each a name. The Po- 

 lynesians, on the contrary, have no special names even for the four 

 cardinal points. East and west they express by phrases signifying 

 sunrise and sunset ; north and south usually by the names for certain 

 winds, or by the words right hand and left. But even these expres- 

 sions are rarely used. The canoes of the Caroline islanders are made 

 to sail with either end foremost, resembling in that respect, those 

 which are in use at the Feejee Islands, and which the natives of 

 Tonga have borrowed from thence. Whether this model belongs 

 properly to the black race or the Micronesian is uncertain ; but from 

 its universality among the latter, we should be inclined to ascribe it 

 to them. Those who inhabit the high islands have also the art of 



