PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
121 
none of these bodies had any olfensive smell, not even those that had CHAP. 
been recently exposed upon the drying-board. Lieutenant Belcher, ^ . 
whose duty carried him a great deal about the islands, saw some jan, 
bodies that were exposed to dry, covered with a matted shed to 
protect them from the rain; and in one he found the head and 
right arm separated from the trunk, wrapped in separate pieces of 
cloth, and secured by a lashing to the body. On no part of the shore 
did we see skulls or bones exposed and heaped together, as about the 
niorais common to Polynesia ; and although Mr. Belcher found some 
human bones partly burned lying loose upon a rock, together with a 
body deposited in a grave with a wicker-work frame over it, there is 
every reason to believe that these exposures are very rare indeed, and 
that almost all the bodies are wrapped in cloth, and deposited as first de- 
scribed. This custom furnishes a satisfactory reason for their cloth being 
so scarce ; and though we cannot commend their policy in clothing the 
dead at the expense of the living, yet they must be allowed the merit 
due to their generosity and respect for their departed friends. 
On the 7 th I visited a village at the south extremity of Belcher 
Island. It was situated in a little bay, at the foot of a ridge of hills 
''vhich intersected the island. We were received by about a dozen 
iRen and women, who behaved in a very friendly manner, and brought 
down cocoa-nuts (some of which, by the by, had been previously 
emptied of their contents), sugar-cane, tee-roots, one bunch of bananas, 
8^nd several clumps of the pandanus nuts ; these they threw into the 
boat without soliciting any return ; and, what is more extraordinary, 
R'ithout evincing any desire to steal. All the men then quitted us, ex- 
cepting one, who was as anxious that we should depart as the women 
R^ere that we should land. Two of these females behaved in a 
Rianner which attracted our attention, although we could not account 
Ibr their conduct ; they waded out to the boats crying most piteously, 
striking their breasts, and pulling their hair, which hung loose over their 
^boulders, with every demonstration of the deepest distress ; and, to 
ORr surprise, threw their arms round our necks, and hugged us so close 
that we could not disengage ourselves from their embrace without 
'violence. As we were quite unconscious of the nature of their grief, we 
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