PREFACE. 



xliii 



those who wished to rest after the fatigues of the 

 day. On certain urgent occasions they always re- 

 quired the attendance of their lovers ; but as they 

 were frequently refused, the decks were made to 

 resemble the paths of the islands/' " We had a 

 very weak scorbutic patient, when we arrived at 

 Taheitee: this man being somewhat recovered, by 

 means of fresh vegetable food, and animated by the 

 example of the crew, wooed a Taheitean girl : 

 about dusk led her to his birth, and lighted a can- 

 dle. She looked her lover in the face, and finding 

 he had lost an eye, she took him by the hand, and 

 conducted him upon deck again, to a girl that was 

 one-eyed likewise ; giving him to understand, that 

 this person was a fit partner for him."* 



Speaking of the custom among a certain class 

 called Arreoys, of destroying their children, Forster 

 has the following curious note, which furnishes an 

 apt illustration ot the pure morality of a city pecu- 

 Harly favoured with the guardianship of that stern 

 moralist, the Quarterly Reviewer. It is in a note 

 appended to a laboured extenuation of the practice 

 so almost universal among the inhabitants of the 

 South Seas, of prostituting their women. 



" Depravity," he observes, is much more at 

 home in our polished climate, and I must here men- 

 tion an instance, which stains Society with indelible 

 dishonour. — In the metropolis of England, there are 

 wretches who pubhcly declare their skill, and offer 

 their services to procure abortion. (See advertise- 

 ment to that effect, in a public paper, No. 1322, for 

 Wednesday, January 15th, 1777.) They are suf- 

 fered, with impunity, to make a trade of destroying 

 human beings in the womb." 



Again : ^' The simplicity of a dress which ex- 



" For'5trr. vol. 3. p, 84 



/ 



