THE POLYNESIANS. 1>81 



proportioned body, with well-rounded limbs and swelling 

 muscles. The nations belonging to this yellow or Polynesian 

 race have in general attained a much higher degree of 

 civilisation than the black hordes of the western islands ; and 

 though enormous distances intervene between them, the inhabi- 

 tants of the large groups of the Sandwich, Society, Navigators, 

 and Friendly Islands, are more similar to each other than the 

 various nations crowded together in the comparatively narrow 

 space of our continent. Their features are everywhere the 

 same ; they speak dialects of the same language, so nearly 

 resembling each other that the people of Tonga can freely 

 converse with those of Hawaii ; and when first visited by 

 European navigators they showed a surprising similarity in 

 tlieir customs, their religious observances, and their political 

 institutions, as well as in the progress they had made in 

 agriculture and the industrial arts. 



Not satisfied with the spontaneous bounty of Nature, they 

 forced the willing soil to yield them a variety of productions. 

 The Tahitians, besides multiplying the bread-fruit tree and 

 the cocoa palm, chiefly cultivated the banana, the sweet potato, 

 and the yam ; while the roots of the taro formed the principal 

 nourishment of the Sandwich Islanders, who by an admirable 

 system of irrigation extended the plantations of this water- 

 loving plant, even high up the hills, where it grew in artificial 

 ponds. These served likewise as basins for the reception of 

 mullets, which were taken when quite young out of the sea, 

 and placed in reservoirs into which some sweet water was made 

 to flow. They were then gradually accustomed to water less 

 and less salt, and ultimately, after five or six weeks, transferred 

 to the submerged taro plantations, where they grew to a large 

 size, and acquired a delicious flavour. 



The food of the common people in all these islands consisted 

 entirely of vegetables : pork, and the flesh of dogs, which was 

 particularly esteemed, being exclusively reserved for the use of 

 the great. This taste seems strange, but as the dogs destined 

 for the table were fed wholly upon bread-friut, cocoa-nuts, and 

 other vegetables, their flesh was but little inferior to English 

 lamb, and might well pass for a delicacy in a country where 

 beef, mutton, and venison were unknown. The general drink 

 was water or the milk of the cocoa-nut, but on festive occasions 



