But these simple-minded people have their vices, and great ones too.
Chastity is almost unknown among a certain description of women: there
is a detestable society called _Arreoy_, composed, it would seem, of a
particular class, who are supposed to be the chief warriors of the
island. In this society the men and women live in common; and on the
birth of a child it is immediately smothered, that its bringing up may
not interfere with the brutal pleasures of either father or mother.
Another savage practice is that of immolating human beings at the
_Morais_, which serve as temples as well as sepulchres, and yet, by the
report of the missionaries, they entertain a due sense and reverential
awe of the Deity. 'With regard to their worship,' Captain Cook does the
Otaheitans but justice in saying, 'they reproach many who bear the name
of Christians. You see no instances of an Otaheitan drawing near the
Eatooa with carelessness and inattention; he is all devotion; he
approaches the place of worship with reverential awe; uncovers when he
treads on sacred ground; and prays with a fervour that would do honour
to a better profession. He firmly credits the traditions of his
ancestors. None dares dispute the existence of the Deity.' Thieving may
also be reckoned as one of their vices; this, however, is common to all
uncivilized nations, and, it may be added, civilized too. But to judge
them fairly in this respect, we should compare their situation with that
of a more civilized people. A native of Otaheite goes on board a ship
and finds himself in the midst of iron bolts, nails, knives, scattered
about, and is tempted to carry off a few of them. If we could suppose a
ship from El Dorado to arrive in the Thames, and that the custom-house
officers, on boarding her, found themselves in the midst of bolts,
hatchets, chisels, all of solid gold, scattered about the deck, one need
scarcely say what would be likely to happen. If the former found the
temptation irresistible to supply himself with what was essentially
useful--the latter would be as little able to resist that which would