Modes of salutation have sometimes very different characters, and it is
no uninteresting speculation to examine their shades. Many display a
refinement of delicacy, while others are remarkable for their
simplicity, or for their sensibility. In general, however, they are
frequently the same in the infancy of nations, and in more polished
societies. Respect, humility, fear, and esteem, are expressed much in a
similar manner, for these are the natural consequence of the
organisation of the body.

These demonstrations become in time only empty civilities, which signify
nothing; we shall notice what they were originally, without reflecting
on what they are.

Primitive nations have no peculiar modes of salutation; they know no
reverences or other compliments, or they despise and disdain them. The
Greenlanders laugh when they see an European uncover his head, and bend
his body before him whom he calls his superior.

The Islanders, near the Philippines, take the hand or foot of him they
salute, and with it they gently rub their face. The Laplanders apply
their nose strongly against that of the person they salute. Dampier
says, that at New Guinea they are satisfied to put on their heads the
leaves of trees, which have ever passed for symbols of friendship and
peace. This is at least a picturesque salute.

Other salutations are very incommodious and painful; it requires great
practice to enable a man to be polite in an island situated in the
straits of the Sound. Houtman tells us they saluted him in this
grotesque manner: "They raised his left foot, which they passed gently
over the right leg, and from thence over his face." The inhabitants of