Viewing page 77 of 130

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

236

as the Otaheiteans, though commonly of a more muscular form. And these effects are supposed, by the naturalists whom I have before mentioned, to be increased by the position of their habitations, which are never placed like those of the Otaheiteans, on beautiful and fertile plains, but generally on the slopes, and often on the summits of very high hills; so that whenever they move abroad, they are necessarily in a state of strenuous exertion.

From the inhabitants of the Marquesas, the people of the Friendly Isles, who, from choice, or from necessity, are addicted to the same habits of industry and exertion, do not differ much either in complexion or in figure.

But far to the east, and nearly at an equal distance from Society Isles, and the American continent, we discover the small, and thinly inhabited island of Easter. The natives of this remote and solitary spot are subjected to greater hardships than those of the islands which have just been mentioned; and living in a still ruder state of society, are represented as being more slender in their persons, and more dark and coppery in their complexion, not unlike the Peruvians of the neighboring continent. Several relics of ancient art, however, bearing a striking resemblance to the remaining monuments of ancient indian architecture and superstition, demonstrate that this island has once been possessed by a people who made greater advances in the progress towards civilization than the present inhabitants.

Within the same latitudes, and not remote from the Society, and Friendly Isles lies the group of the New Hebrides. of these several are inhabited by a people more savage than the former. Their inhabitants, especially those of Mallicollo, of New Caledonia and Tanna, are distinguished by a sooty complexion. Their hair, thought not so short, and closely napped as that of the Africans, is frizzled and woolly. And in their whole appearance, they bear some analogy to the miserable inhabitants of the neighboring region of New Holland; except that their slender persons are better turned, and they possess much greater vivacity of disposition. The natives of Papua, and New Guinea exhibit nearly the same colour of the skin, and the same form of the hair.  But in all the large islands near the Indian continent there are very distinctly marked two races of men;-one inhabiting the mountainous countries every where occupying the interior of those islands; the other possessing the low and level