young friend Mahine for valuing himfeif on being a member of fuch a deteftable body. We endeavour ed to point out the immorality and cruelty of this practice, and made ufe of every argument which our reflections could furnish, or our words exprefs. We eally fucceeded in convincing him, and obtained a promile that he would not kill his children, but feparate from the fociety as foon as he thould receive the glorious name of father. To our great fatisfaction he affured us, that the inftances of a reoys having children were extremely rare. It feems that they choose their wives and miltreffes among the profitutes; and from this circumftance, as well as from their great voluptuoufnefs, they have feldom reafon to dread the intrufion of an unfortunate infant. The aufwers of OMaï, whom I confulted on this fubject after my return to England, gave me ftill greater pleafure, as they foftened the tranfgreffion at leat of one part, and entirely freed the bulk of the nation from that fhare of guilt, which the fimple acquiefcence in fuch a heinous crime might throw upon them. He affured me, that the invariable laws of the community of arreoy required the extinction of their offspring; that the pre-eminence and advantages which a man enjoyed as arreoy were fo valuable, as to urge him on againit his own feelings; that the mother was never willing to confent to the horrid murder, but that her husband and other arreoys perfuaded her to yield up the child; and that when entreaties were not fuflicient, force was fometimes employed. But bove all, he added, that this act as always performed in fecret, 5

and fo that none of the people, not even the towtows or attendants of the houfe, were prefent; becaufe, if it were feen, the murderers maft be put to death. This being the cafe, we may comfort curfelves with the reflection, that criminal individuals are not more numerous in the Society Islands, than among other people; and that the votaries of vice have no reafon to triumph, in fuppofing a whole nation accustomed to commit unnatural murders, without a fense of wrong.

The arreoys were no lefs hofpitable than luxurious, and it was not for want of invitation that we did not partake of their refrethments. We rambled in the country till funfet, and then returned to the hip, which Mahine, the woman, and the other Indian paffengers had now left. The next morning a great number of natives came to the fhip in their canoes, among whom were many women, who remained with the failors. At Huahine the commerce of this kind had been very inconfiderable, and chiefly confined to women who were only on a vifit to that island; it was therefore refumed here with the greateft eagerness by our crew. We paffed the day on an excurfion to the northward, where e fhot feveral wild ducks, and met with a hofpitable reception in different cottages.

The next was a fine day, delightfully tempered by a strong easterly gale. We received the vifits of Orea and all his family, of Boba, the viceroy of the island of O-Tahà, and of Teïna, the fair dancing-woman, whofe picture Mr. Hodges had formerly attempted to draw, Boba was a tall,

hand

handfome young man, a native of Borabora, related to Poonee, the king of that island, and conqueror. of Raietea and Tahà. Mahine has frequently told us, that he is defined to be the fucceffor of O-Poone, whofe only daughter Maïwherua, faid to be a young beautiful princefs, twelve years cld, he is to marry. Boba was at prefent an arreoy, and kept the lively Teïna as his miftrefs, who was with child in confequence. We entered into converfation with her on the custom of killing the offfpring of an arreoy. The fhort dialogue which paffed between us was couched in the moft fimple expreffions, because we had not fufficient knowledge of the language to discourse of abftract ideas. For the fame reafon all our rhetoric was exhaufted in a few moments, and had no other effect, than to draw the following conceffion from Teïna-maï:" that our eatua (deity) in England might perhaps be offended by the practice of the arreoys; but that her's was not difpleafed with it. She promised, however, if we would come from England to fetch her child, the might perhaps keep it alive, provided we gave her a hatchet, a fhirt, and fome red feathers."

In a former volume we have given our Readers an account of the manners and cuftoms of the natives of Otaheite. As fome facts in that account appear to have been mifreprefented, we think it neceffary to add the following extract from Captain Cook's laft Voyage.

REAT injuftice has been

have reprefented them, without exception, as ready to grant the laft favour to any man who will come up to their price. But this is by no means the cafe; the favours of married women, and alfo the unmarried of the better fort, are as difficult to be obtained here as in any other country whatever. Neither can the charge be underflood indifcriminately of the unmarried of the lower clafs, for many of these admit of no fuch familiarities. That there are proftitutes here, as well as in other countries, is very true, perhaps more in proportion, and fuch were those who came on board the fhips to our people, and frequented the poft we had on fhore. By feeing thefe mix indifcriminately with those of a different turn, even of the first rank, one is, at first, inclined to think that they are all difpofed the fame way, and that the only difference is in the price. But the truth is, the woman who becomes a proftitute, does not feem, in their opinion, to have committed a crime of fo deep a dye as to exclude her from the esteem and fociety of the community in general.

On the whole, a ftranger who vifits England might, with equal justice, draw the characters of the women there, from those which he might meet with on board the fhips in one of the naval ports, or in the purlieus of CoventGarden and Drury Lane. I muft, however, allow that they are all completely verfed in the art of coquetry, and that very few of them fix any bounds to their converfation. It is, therefore, no wonder that they have obtained the character of

GREAT and the Society Ifles, by thofe who

gruel or whey, and of which fo much generally run out at the corners of her mouth, that they could not be fenfible that any of it had been swallowed. :

Much about this time, that is, about four years ago, they got a bottle of the water from a noted medicinal fpring in Brea-mar, of which they endeavoured to get her to fwallow a part, by pouring fome out of a fpoon between her lips (her jaws all the white fait-locked) but it all run out. With this, however, they rubbed her throat and jaws, and continued the trial to make her swallow, rubbing her throat with the water that run out of her mouth for three mornings. together. On the third morning during this operation, the cried, Give me more water; when all that remained of the bottle was given her, which the fwallowed with ease. These were the only words the spoke for almost a year. and fhe continued to mutter fome more (which her parents underflood) for twelve or fourteen days, after which he spoke none, and rejected, as formerly, all forts of nourishment and drink, till fome time in the month of July 1765, when a filter of hers thought, by fome figns that he made, that the wanted her jaws opened; which her father, not without violence, got done, by putting the handle of a horn-fpoon between her teeth. She faid then intelligibly, Give me a drink; and drank with eafe, and all at one draught, about an English pint of water. Her father then afked her why he would not make fome figns, although the could not speak, when the wanted a drink? She answered, why fhould the when she had no de

fire. At this period they kept the jaws afunder with a bit of wood, imagining fhe got her speech by her jaws being opened, and continued them thus wedged for about twenty days, though in the first four or five days fhe had wholly loft the power of utterance, At last they removed the wedge, as it gave her uneasiness, and made her lips fore. At this time he was fenfible of every thing done or faid about her; and when her eye-lids were opened for her, the knew every body; and when the neighbours in their vifits would be bemoaning her condition, they could obferve a tear ftand in her eye.

In fome of the attempts to open her jaws, two of the under foreteeth were forced out of which opening they often endeavoured to avail themselves, by putting fome thin nourishing drink into her mouth; but without effe&t, for it always returned by the corners; and, about a twelvemonth ago, they thought of thrusting a little dough of oatmeal through this gap of the teeth, which the would retain a few feconds, and then return with fomething like a ftraining to vomit, without one particle going down: nor has the family been fenfible, though obferving, of any appearance like that of fwallowing, for now four years, excepting the fmall draught of Brea-mar water and the English pint of common water; and for the laft three years fhe had not had any evacuation by fool or urine, except that, once or twice a week, the has paffed a few drops of urine,' as the parents exprefs it, about as much as would wet the furface of a half-penny; and even fmall as this quantity is, it gives her fome

F3

uneafi,