very fingular dress in which a ceremony is performed that will be defcribed in its turn. Near the place where the dead are thus fet up to rot, the bones are afterwards buried.

What can have introduced among these people the custom of expofing their dead above ground, till the flesh is confumed by putrefaction, and then burying the bones, it is perhaps impoffible to guefs; but it is remarkable, that Ælian and Apollonius Rhodius impute a fimilar practice to the ancient inhabitants of Colchis, a country near Pontus in Afia, now called Mingrelia; except that among them this manner of difpofing of the dead did not extend to both fexes: the women they buried; but the men they wrapped in a hide, and hung up in the air by a chain. This practice among the Colchians is referred to a religious caufe. The principal objects of their worship were the Earth and the Air; and it is fuppofed that, in confequence of fome fuperfti tious notion, they devoted their dead to both. Whether the natives of Otaheite had any notion of the fame kind, we were never able certainly to determine; but we foon discovered, that the repofitories of their dead were also places of worship. Upon this occafion it may be obferv. ed, that nothing can be more abfurd than the notion that the happiness or misery of a future life depends, in any degree, upon the disposition of the body when the state of probation is past; yet

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that nothing is more general than a folicitude about it. However cheap we may hold any fuMonday 5. neral rites which cuftom has not familiarized, or fuperftition rendered facred, most men gravely deliberate how to prevent their body from being broken by the mattock and devoured by the worm, when it is no longer capable of fenfation; and purchase a place for it in holy ground, when they believe the lot of its future existence to be irrevocably determined. So ftrong is the afsociation of pleasing or painful ideas with certain opinions and actions which affect us while we live, that we involuntarily act as if it was equally certain that they would affect us in the fame manner when we are dead, though this is an opinion that nobody will maintain. Thus it happens, that the defire of preferving from réproach even the name that we leave behind us, or of procuring it honour, is one of the most powerful principles of action, among the inhabitants of the moft fpeculative and enlightened nations. Pofthumous reputation, upon every principle, must be acknowledged to have no influence upon the dead; yet the defire of obtaining and fecuring it, no force of reason, no habits of thinking can fubdue, except in those whom habitual baseness and guilt have rendered indifferent to honour and fhame while they lived. This indeed feems to be among the happy imperfections of our nature, upon which

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the general good of fociety in a certain measure depends; for as fome crimes are fuppofed to be prevented by hanging the body of the crimi- Monday 5. nal in chains after he is dead, fo in confequence of the fame affociation of ideas, much good is procured to fociety, and much evil prevented, by a defire of preventing difgrace or procuring honour to a name, when nothing but a name remains.

Perhaps no better ufe can be made of reading an account of manners altogether new, by which the follies and abfurdities of mankind are taken out of that particular connexion in which habit has reconciled them to us, than to confider in how many instances they are effentially the fame. When an honeft devotee of the Church of Rome reads, that there are Indians on the banks of the Ganges, who believe that they fhall fecure the happiness of a future ftate by dying with a cow's tail in their hands, he laughs at their folly and fuperftition; and if thefe Indians were to be told, that there are people upon the continent of Europe, who imagine that they fhall derive the fame advantage from dying with the flipper of St. Francis upon their foot, they would laugh in their turn. But if, when the Indian heard the account of the Catholic, and the Catholic that of the Indian, each was to reflect, that there was no difference between the abfurdity of the flipper and of the

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tail; but that the veil of prejudice and cuftom, which covered it in their own cafe, was withMonday 5. drawn in the other, they would turn their knowledge to a profitable purpose.

Saturd. 10.

Having obferved that bread fruit had for fome days been brought in lefs quantities than, ufual, we inquired the reafon; and were told, that there being a great fhow of fruit upon the trees, they had been thinned all at once, in order to make a kind of four paste, which the natives call Mahie, and which, in confequence of having undergone a fermentation, will keep a confiderable time, and fupply them with food when no ripe fruit is to be had.

On the 10th, the ceremony was to be performed, in honour of the old woman whofe fepulchral tabernacle has just been described, by the chief mourner; and Mr. Banks had for great a curiofity to fee all the myfteries of the folemnity, that he determined to take a part in it, being told, that he could be present upon no other condition. In the evening, therefore, he repaired to the place where the body lay, and was received by the daughter of the deceafed, and several other perfons, among whom was a boy about fourteen years old, who were to affift in the ceremony. Tubourai Tamaide was to be the principal mourner; and his dress, which was extremely fantastical, though not unbecoming, is reprefented by a figure in one

of

of the plates. Mr. Banks was ftripped of his European clothes, and a fmall piece of cloth being tied round his middle, his body was fmeared with charcoal and water, as low as the fhoulders, till it was as black as that of a ne· groe: the fame operation was performed upon several others, among whom were fome women, who were reduced to a state as near to nakedness as himself; the boy was blacked all over, and then the proceffion fet forward. Tubourai Tamaide uttered fomething, which was supposed to be a prayer, near the body; and did the fame when he came up to his own houfe: when this was done, the proceffion was continued towards the fort, permiffion having been obtained to approach it upon this occafion. It is the cuftom of the Indians to fly from these proceffions with the utmost precipitation, fo that as foon as those who were about the fort, faw it at a distance, they hid themselves in the woods. It proceeded from the fort along the fhore, and put to flight another body of Indians, consisting of more than an hundred, every one hiding himself under the firft fhelter that he could find it then croffed the river, and entered the woods, paffing several houses, all which were deferted, and not a fingle Indian could be seen during the reft of the proceffion, which continued more than half an hour. The office that Mr. Banks performed, was called that of

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