636 APPEARANCE OF NATIVES RELIGION. April 



at each of those islands to whom I could not trace resemblances 

 (setting individual features aside,) at the Keelings ; I merely 

 say that there was not one individual among the two hundred 

 Malays I saw there whom I could have distinguished from a 

 Polynesian Islander, had I seen him in the Pacific. 



Two boys attracted my notice particularly, because their 

 colour was of a brighter red* than that of any South Ameri- 

 can or Polynesian whom I had seen, and upon enquiry I found 

 that these two boys were sons of Alexander Hare and a 

 Malay woman. 



Excepting the two English families I have mentioned, all 

 on the Keelings in ]836, were Mahometans. One of their 

 number officiated as priest ; but exclusive of an extreme dislike 

 to pigs, they showed little outward attention to his injunctions. 

 As no Christian minister had ever visited the place, and there 

 was no immediate prospect of one coming there, I was asked to 

 baptize the children of Mrs. Leisk. So unusual a demand 

 occasioned some scruples on my part, but at last I complied, 

 and performed the appointed service in Mr. Ro.ss's house ; 

 where six children of various ages were christened in succession. 

 This and other facts I have mentioned respecting these 

 sequestered islands shew the necessity that exists for some in- 

 specting influence being exercised at every place where British 

 subjects are settled. A visit from a man of war, even once 

 only in a year, is sufficient (merely in prospect) to keep bad 

 characters in tolerable check, and would make known at head 

 quarters the more urgent wants of the settlers. 



In observing the sun's meridian altitude at this place, the 

 sextants were used, which I have adverted to before (p. 396), 

 and the latitude deduced from their results only differed two 

 or three seconds from that obtained by stars, without using the 

 additional glass : I forgot to say, in speaking of the Galapagos, 

 how useful those instruments were there ; enabling us to mea- 

 sure the sun's meridian altitude in an artificial horizon when 

 nearly eighty degrees high. I would not say this in favour of 



* Brighter by comparison ; their colour was that of copper in its 

 very reddest state — without any tinge of yellow. 



