284 A Letter on Otaheite. 



many of the other Islands of this great Ocean. These observations 

 constitute a part of a manuscript, which I have prepared, and which 

 I design to pubHsh on my arrival in Europe. 



What I have already communicated and shewn to you in the 

 course of a conversation, which I liave had with you on the subject 

 of these traditions, must I think satisfy you, that these singular an- 

 cient monuments of a people, formerly very numerous, separated and 

 dispersed among Islands a thousand miles from the rest of the world — 

 of a people, of whom little is correctly known, must be a subject of 

 general interest, to all well informed persons, but that they are espe- 

 cially deserving the attention of the literary and scientific ; since they 

 cannot fail to throw some light upon the origin and the ancient state 

 of a people, who, although they have furnished a subject, for unwea- 

 ried discussion for a considerable time, still present an enigma, which 

 has never yet received a satisfactory solution. For, all the research- 

 es, which have heretofore taken place, have produced nothing 

 more than superficial and unsatisfactory speculations, which, a mere 

 knowledge of their language, or an acquaintance with their habits 

 and customs, is sufficient to prove unfounded ; but which, a consid- 

 eration of their means of communication and transportation from 

 place to place, with a knowledge, of the prevailing winds and the 

 current of the sea refute incontestably. 



If it is a great mistake as to the origin of these Islanders, to sup- 

 pose them to pass from one extremity of the earth to the other, 

 against winds and currents, and for this purpose, using means of 

 transportation over a vast ocean, of which the authors, who use such 

 magic pens, would hesitate to avail themselves in order to pass the 

 Seine or the Thames, and there is a still greater one as to the an- 

 cient condition of this people, as respects their advances towards 

 knowledge and civilization. 



You know, Sir, when we use the expressions " savages," " per- 

 sons in a state of nature," he. the ideas attached to such expres- 

 sions, are, that the people of whom we are speaking, are mere bar- 

 barians, have never been civilized, or in any other state, than they 

 now are, but are nearly the same, as when they first received exist- 

 ence. Among the people, supposed to belong to this class, the in- 

 habitants of these Islands are usually ranked ; and certainly if an- 

 thropophagy, infanticide, human sacrifices, and some other barbar- 

 ous and cruel practices, constitute the primitive state of man, these 

 Islanders make the nearest approach to what is called the state of 

 nature. 



