140 
VOYAGE TO THE 
' CHAP. Seas, being almost entirely confined, according to Cook, to the Sand- 
wich Islanders and New Zealanders. In no instance did we observe 
Jail. the lips or tongues tattooed, as is the practice with the Sandwich 
]82G ^ 
Islanders on the death of an intimate friend. 
I have estimated the number of souls inhabiting these islands 
at 1500, from the number and size of the villages. Mr. Collie, who 
estimates them from other data, says, “ On the 1st January, when the 
boats went to land, 200 people, for the most part in the prime of life, 
were counted on the beach. On the 9th, in the village, we enumerated 
300 persons, men and women. On both these occasions it is highly 
probable that the men in the vigour of life had come from the adjoining 
parts of the island, and from the islands contiguous. We may then 
assume, on the nearest approximation to the truth, that there were 
between 250 and 300 males between the ages of twenty and fifty — say 
275; which, according to the most accurate census of population and 
bills of mortality in Sweden and Switzerland, where the modifying 
circumstances are in all probability not very different, would give 1285 
for the total number of inhabitants.” 
The diseases and deformities of these people are very few. After 
we quitted the islands, the surgeon favoured me with the following 
report : — 
“Among more than three hundred men, women, and children, who 
indiscriminately surrounded us at the village on the 9th ; among those 
who had previously come on board, and at other times, whether upon 
the shore or on their rafts ; we saw very few labouring under any 
original deformity or annoying disease. The only case of mal-con- 
formation was a wide fissure in the palate of one man, whose speech was 
considerably affected by it. No external mark of cicatrization in the 
upper lip denoted that the internal defect was the remains of a hare- 
lip or any injury. One man had a very uneven and ragged stump 
of the right arm, but without any discharge. Another had a steato- 
matous tumour over one shoulder-blade, about the size of a billiard- 
ball. One disease was so common that I have no doubt it w^as endemic : 
this was, patches of the lepra vulgaris, which being void of any inflam- 
matory appearance, and confined to the back in all who W'ere affected 
