47$ R E M A R K S o n t h i
.a -r-T.s they could by no means determine with any degree'of certainty*
A N D . . . . .
s c i e n c e s how many years they had lived: for they think it fatisfadtionenough
to live long, without minutely keeping an account o f their age, by
months or years. When Capt. Cook came to O-Taheitee in the
year .1769, hefaw T o o t a h a and calls him a middle aged man ; *
he was no doubt the younger brother o f O -A mo and H a p p a i ,
who both were grey-headed in 1774, when we came to .Taheitee,
their mother was ftill alive, and in my opinion between 60 and 70,
Ihe had white hair, and was very corpulent, and feemed’ ilill to
retain fo much vigour and ftrength, as to render it probable that’
die might.live feveral years. .
Th e y haye no doubt, in thefe idles difrafes, but as far as I am
able to judge, from what I faw, difeafes are lefs numerous, and
lefs common, than in our climates and focieties. And many reafons
may be affigned, which may induce us to beliey© the inhabitants
more happy, and lefs fubjedl to that croud o f difeafes, ■ infeiling our
communities, and caufing generally fuch a havock among our
Europeans, as muft ihock even the feelings o f the moil intrepid
philofopher, or the moil indolent beholder; for they are nothing
lefs than feenes o f death varied in many hundred ihapes.
T h e y all live in a climate which muil be. eileemed excellent;
for i f you do not ufe immoderate exercife, and purpofely expofe
yourfelf
* Hawkelworth, vol. il, p. 84,
H U M A N S P E C I E S ,
yourfelf to the powerful rays o f a vertical fun, you always find it
fufficiently temperate. Th e mitigating alternate fea and land
breezes aifuage the heat o f the climate ƒ ' and in all parts’ o f the
South-Sea which we vifited, we found the inhabitants careful to keep
under ihelter during night, in order to avoid the cool and moiil noftur-
nal air; and we obferved in general, that in all other iflands beyond
Taheitee and the Society-ifles, the natives had houfes better calcu-
lated.to.exclude.cold and moifture than thofe open Iheds-:. nay, as
the rains often came on in fqualls, attended with cold winds from
the cloudy, fummits o f their hills, they are equally folieitdus' ta
take fhelter at the firil appearance o f them. Their garments made
©f the bark of thepaper-mulberry (Moruspapyriferajare at the fame
time a warm and a cool drefs ; fufficient to fereen them againft the
says o f the.fiin, and likewife to keep off the noxious effedts of cooling
winds..
The fine tropical fruits, which afford a falubrfous, palatable;
and nourilhing food, contribute likewife to preferve that healthy
habit o f body which the natives generally enjoy, for they are as yet;
flrangers to the curie entailed on European focieties, that a man
comes, into, the world with a body,, whole Iblids are infirm and
relaxed, whofe nerves are tortured by acute pains, whofe fluids’
are poifoned with a virus which faps his vitals from the very day c f
Ms birth, and who has this wretchednefs fettled on him, as it were?
’ by
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