96 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
have been banished, or selected as sacrifices, for 
withholding what these daring ramblers required; 
than perhaps for all other crimes. To withhold 
food from the king or chiefs, when they might 
enter a district, was considered a crime next to 
resisting the royal authority, or declaring war 
against the king; and this has in a great degree 
rendered the people so ready to provide an enter¬ 
tainment for those by whom they may be visited. 
Next to their hospitality, their cheerfulness and 
good nature strike a stranger. They are seldom 
melancholy or reserved, always willing to enter 
into conversation, and ready to be pleased, and to 
attempt to please their associates. They are, gene¬ 
rally speaking, careful not to give offence to each 
other : but though, since the introduction of Chris¬ 
tianity, families dwell together, and find an increas¬ 
ing interest in social intercourse, yet they do not 
realize that high satisfaction experienced by mem¬ 
bers of families more advanced in civilization. 
There are, however, few domestic broils; and 
were fifty natives taken promiscuously from any 
town or village, to be placed in a neighbourhood 
or house—where they would disagree once, fifty 
Englishmen, selected in the same way, and placed 
under similar circumstances, would quarrel perhaps 
twenty times. They do not appear to delight in 
provoking one another, but are far more accus¬ 
tomed to jesting, mirth, and humour, than irritating 
or reproachful language. 
Their jests and raillery were not always confined 
to individuals, but extended to neighbourhoods, or 
the population of whole islands. The inhabitants 
of one of the Leeward Islands, (Tahaa, I believe,) 
even to the present time furnish matter for mirthful 
jest to the natives of the other islands of the group, 
