PREFACE. 



Ixxi 



inanufactures, the particulars of their religious ce- 

 remonies, is next questioned by the Reviewer. Yet 

 it is somewhat remarkable, that his accounts are 

 completely verified by Langsdorf and Krusenstiern,^^ 

 both of whom the Reviewer speaks of as if he were 

 familiar with their voyage. Krusenstiern gives the 

 women a preference over those of the other islands 

 in point of beauty; and Langsdorf more than cor- 

 roborates his opinion. " Judging," he says, " from 

 the accounts of other navigators who have visited 

 the Friendly and Society Islands, 1 am inclined to 

 think that the people of the Marquesas and Wash- 

 ington Islands excel in beauty and grandeur of 

 form, in regularity of features, and in colour, all 

 the other South Sea Islanders."} Captain Wilson, 

 who visited this island in 1797, having previously 

 heard the beauty of the females much celebrated, 

 had on board an Otaheitean woman ; but, he says, 

 " though she was tolerably handsome, and well 

 made, she was entirely eclipsed by the finely pro- 

 portioned women of Nukahiwa."J Many of the 

 persons named by Krusenstiern are perfectly fami- 

 liar to the author of this journal. The Englishman, 

 Roberts, is evidently the Wilson of the author ; and 

 whatever difference occurs in the other names, 

 originates in the interpretations into different lan- 

 guages. Kettenowee is Capt. Porter's Gattanev\ a : 

 Man-ha-u is his Mowina ; and if the similarity of 

 names is not sufficient to establish the identity, the 

 reader who doubts may compare the two descrip- 

 tions, and he will be perfectly satisfied. The 

 houses represented in the view, fronting page 126 

 of Langsdorf, agree with the author's descriptions 



■■^ Both Langsdorf and Krusenstiern were first published in English in 

 1813 ; and the author of this Journal never saw either until after its pub- 

 lication. The coincidence is, therefore, that of truth, and not of plagiar- 

 ism. 



f Langsdorf, p, 108. t Ibid. p. 1 1 L 



