62 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



and almost without motive. Thus they are kind or cruel, loquacious or taciturn, 

 active or indolent, according to the promptings of caprice or passion ; and they 

 have been truly said to possess the foibles of children, w^ith the vices of men. 

 The more their character has been studied, the more evident it becomes that their 

 good qualities w^ere greatly overrated by the first voyagers and missionaries vs^ho 

 visited them. The correctness of these remarks is sustained by the laxity of 

 moral feeling throughout these islands ; by their absurd superMitions and human 

 sacrifices; by their remorseless cruelty to prisoners taken in vrar, and their general 

 recklessness of life ; and last, not least, by the Arreois society, (now happily obso- 

 lete,) which enjoined the murder of the offspring of its members. 



The Polynesians, nevertheless, are intelligent, imitative, and amenable to 

 instruction, as is manifest in their rapid progress in elementary literature and 

 the more useful arts : and if we except the New Zealanders, the Fegee islanders, 

 and a few other groups, perhaps no people on the globe have been more readily 

 amenable to the usages of civilised life, and the doctrines of Christianity. Their 

 intellectual capacities have by some authors been considered equal in all respects 

 to those of the Caucasian race ; which, however, is by no means certain ; for 

 although they rapidly acquire ideas by means of active perceptive powers, their 

 reflective faculties have not hitherto expanded in proportion. 



In their uncivilised state they are singularly devoted to the pastimes of 

 boxing, wrestling, archery and boat racing ; but their most striking predilection is 

 for maritime amusement and adventure. Their canoes are large, and constructed 

 with great ingenuity, and will in many instances accommodate fifty men. In 

 these vessels they prosecute their wars upon the neighboring islanders, and under- 

 take considerable voyages for profit and pleasure.* Their fondness for the sea is 

 in fact a national and dominant feature in their character, and shows itself in the 

 eagerness with which they enter as sailors in the ships of all nations ; and their 

 ingenuity is in nothing so conspicuous as in the construction of their vessels.f 



15 THE AMERICAN FAMILY. 



The concurrent testimony of all travellers goes to prove that the native 

 Americans are possessed of certain physical traits that serve to identify them in 



* For an instructive account of the protracted and successful voyages of the Polynesians, see 

 Ellis, I, p. 126, and II, p. 51.— Williams' South Sea Islands, p. 422.— Beechey, Voy, I, p. 172. 

 t FoRSTER, Obs. p. 457. 



