390 CHARACTER. 



tion is, however, brought against them by earlier writers, 

 so that such actions are probably very rare, and the result 

 perhaps, as among the Feegeeans, of misdirected affection 

 rather than of deliberate cruelty. 



They had no money ; and though it was easy to obtain 

 the necessaries of life, to accumulate property was almost 

 impossible. Again, the absence of spirituous liquors, and 

 the relations between the sexes (however unsatisfactory in 

 other respects) took away from them some of the principal 

 incentives to crime. On the whole, then, if we judge them 

 by a South Sea standard, the natives of the Society Islands 

 appear to have been very free from crime. 



In spite of the differences which sometimes arose in conse- 

 quence of their thievish disposition, and also perhaps in great 

 measure from their not being able perfectly to understand 

 each other, Captain Cook and his officers lived with the 

 natives "in the most cordial friendship," and took leave of 

 them with great regret. Mr. Ellis, on the contrary, assures 

 us that u no portion of the human race was ever perhaps 

 sunk lower in brutal licentiousness and moral degradation 

 than this isolated people."* Such a statement is surely quite 

 inconsistent with the account he gives of their anxiety to 

 possess copies of the Bible when it was translated into their 

 language. " They were," he says, " deemed by them more 

 precious than gold yea, than much fine gold," and " became 

 at once the constant companion of their possessors, and the 

 source of their highest enjoyment. "f 



The inhabitants of the Friendly, or Tonga, and of the Sand- 

 wich Islands are also very well described by Capt. Cook, but 

 they belonged to the same race as those of Tahiti and New 

 Zealand, and resembled them in religion, language, canoes, 

 houses, weapons, food, habits, etc. It is somewhat remarkable 

 that the Sandwich Islanders in many respects, as for instance 

 * Ellis, I.e. vol. ii. p. 25. f Ellis, Ic. vol. i. pp. 393-408. 



