136 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, of large dimensions, which we caught with lines, consisting of several 
sorts of perca, as the numerous family of the order of branchiostigi, 
182 G sported about the coral. 
The largest portion of the natives of Gambier Islands belong to a 
class which Mr. G. Forster would place among the first variety of the 
human species in the South Seas. Like the generality of uncivilized 
people, they are good-natured w hen pleased, and harmless when not 
irritated ; obsequious w hen inferior in force, and overbearing when 
otherwise ; and are carried away by an insatiable desire of appro- 
priating to themselves every thing which attracts their fancy — an in- 
dulgence which brings them into many quarrels, and often costs them 
their lives. If respect for the deceased be considered a mark of civiliza- 
tion and humanity, they cannot be called a barbarous people ; but they 
possess no other claims to a worthier designation. In features, lan- 
guage, and customs, they resemble the Society, Friendly, Marquesa, and 
Sandwich Islanders; but they differ from those tribes in one very im- 
portant point— an exemption from those sensual habits and indecent 
exhibitions which there pervade all ranks. It may be said of the Gara- 
bier Islanders what few can assert of any people inhabiting the same 
part of the globe— that during the whole of our intercourse with them 
w^e did not witness an indecent act or gesture. There is a great mix- 
ture of feature and of colour among them ; and we should probably have 
found a difference of dialect also, could w’e have made ourselves masters 
of their language. It seems as if several tribes from remote parts of the 
Pacific had here met and mingled their peculiarities. In complexion 
and feature w e could trace resemblance even to the widely separated 
tribes of New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Malacca. Their mode of 
salutation is the same as that w’hich existed at the Friendly, Society, 
and Sandwich Islands : they resemble the inhabitants of the latter almost 
exclusively in tattooing the face, and the inhabitants of the former in 
staining their skin from the hips to the knees. Their huts, coral tables, 
and pavements, are nearly the same as at the Friendly Islands and 
Marquesas ; but they are more nearly allied to the latter by a custom 
wLich otherwise, I believe, is at present confined to them, and without a 
due observance of wLich, Krusenstern says, it is in vain to seek a matri- 
