Jxxii 



PREFACE. 



in every respect. The account given by Krusen- 

 stiern of the twelve hundred warriors of the Typee 

 Valh y corresponds also with that of this Journal ; 

 and of the valour and ferocity of the natives of the 

 South Sea Islands when irritated, there are too 

 many instances on record to admit of any doubt- 

 It will be sufficient for our present purpose to ex- 

 tract the following account of the intrepidity and 

 skill of the natives of one of these islands. 



I must confess," says the relator, an officer^ 

 who accompanied Capt. Cook on his second voy- 

 age, " I have often been led to think the featSp 

 which Homer represents his heroes as performing 

 with their spears, a little too much of the marvel- 

 lous to be admitted into a heroic poem : I mean, 

 when confined to the strait stays of Aristotle. But 

 since I have seen what these people can do with 

 their wooden spears, and those badly pointed, and 

 not of a very hard nature, I have not the least ex- 

 ception to any one passage in that great poet on 

 this account, — as he has, 1 think, scarcely an action, 

 circumstance, or description of any kind whatever 

 relating to a spear, which I have not seen and re- 

 cognized among these people. As the whirling mo- 

 tion, and whistling noise, as the spears fly; the 

 quivering as they stick in the ground ; the warriors 

 meditating their aim when they are going to throw ; 

 and their shaking of them in the hand, or brandish- 

 ing them as they advance to the attack, &c."^ 



The Quarterly Reviewer would, beyond doubtp 

 forfeit his pay and rations, if in every article of his 

 journal he did not take special care to maintain the 

 honour of old England, by charging all Frenchmen 

 and Americans with impiety, and a want of that 

 Christian charity and benevolence, for which this 



* Cook's Second Voyaee, Collection, p. 624. See also Forster, vol. 2. 

 p. 317. 



