THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
mode of education. For, even in the greateft paroxyfms of 1778. 
their rage, they feem unable to exprefs it fu Ardently, either , Ap . iL , 
with warmth of language, or lignificancy of geftures. 
Their orations, which are made either when engaged in 
any altercation or difpute, or to explain their fentiments 
publicly on other occalions, feem little more than fhort 
fentences, or rather tingle words, forcibly repeated, and 
conftantly in one tone and degree of ftrength, accompanied 
only with a tingle gefture, which they ufe at every fen- 
tence, jerking their whole body a little forward, by bend¬ 
ing the knees, their arms hanging down by their tides at 
the fame time. 
Though there be but too much reafon, from their bring¬ 
ing to fale human tkulls and bones, to infer that they treat 
their enemies with a degree of brutal cruelty, this circum- 
ftance rather marks a general agreement of character with 
that of almoft every tribe of uncivilized man, in every age, 
and in every part of the globe, than that they are to be re¬ 
proached with any charge of peculiar inhumanity. We 
had no reafon to judge unfavourably of their difpolition in 
this refped. They feem to be a docile, courteous, good- 
natured people ; but, notwithstanding the predominant 
phlegm of their tempers, quick in refenting what they look 
upon as an injury; and, like moft other paflionate people, 
as foon forgetting it. I never found that thefe fits of paf- 
fion went farther than the parties immediately concerned; 
the fpedators not troubling themfelves about the quarrel, 
whether it was with any of us, or amongft their own body; 
and preferving as much indifference as if they had not 
known any thing about it. I have often feen one of them 
rave and fcold, without any of his countrymen paying the 
lead; attention to his agitation; and when none of us could 
trace 
