VOYAGE TO THE
CIIAP. Seas, being almost entirely confined, according to Cook, to the Sandwich
Islanders and New Zealanders. In no instance did we observe
the lips or tongues tattooed, as is the prac’tice with the Sandwich
Islanders on the death of an intimate friend.
I have estimated the number of souls inhabiting these islands
at 1500, from the number and size of the villages. Mr. Collie, who
estimates them from other data, says, “ On the 1st January, when the
boats went to land, 200 people, for the most part in the prime of life,
were counted on the beach. On the 9th, in the village, w'e enumerated
800 persons, men and women. On both these occasions it is highly
probable that the men in the vigour oflife had come from the adjoining
parts of the island, and from the islands contiguous. We may then
assume, on the nearest approximation to the truth, that there were
between 260 and 300 males between the ages of twenty and fifty—say
275 ; which, according to the most accurate census of population and
bills of'mortality in Sweden and Switzerland, where the modifying
circumstances are in all probability not very different, would give 1285
for the total number of inhabitants.”
The diseases and deformities of these people are very few. After
we quitted the islands, the surgeon favoured me with the following
report :—
“ Among more than three hundred men, women, and children, who
indiscriminately surrounded us at the village on the 9tli ; among those
who had previously come on board, and at other times, whether upon
the shore or on their rafts; we saw very few labouring under any
original deformity or annoying disease. The only case of mal-con-
formation was a wide fissure in the palate of one man, whose speech was
considerably affected by it. No external mark of cicatrization in the
upper lip denoted that the internal defect was the remains of a harelip
or any injury. One man had a very uneven and ragged stump
of the right arm, but without any discharge. Another had a steato-
niatous tumour over one shoulder-blade, about the size of a billiard-
ball. One disease was so common that I have no doubt it was endemic ;
this was, patches of the lepra vulgaris, which being void of any inflammatory
appearance, and confined to the back in all who were affected
with it, and in a considerable proportion of these to a small space CIIAP.
between the shoulders, appeared to create no alarm, and most probably ,—^
called forth no curative application. The frequent and alternate ex-
posure of the men to the salt water and rays of the sun, with a scanty
supply of the anointing oil of the cocoa-nut, would favour the breaking-
out of this cutaneous affection. The mats which they tied round
their necks, and frequently allowed to hang down behind, whether
through accident or design, would tend to avert the effects of exposure.
A few had lost some of their front tee th ; and we saw one man, on the
9th, with two uncicatrized and bare but clean wounds, one before and
another behind the middle of the right deltoid muscle, where the flies
were feeding without molestation, and the person seemed almost uncon-
sciousofthem and of the ulcers. No preternatural tumefaction denoted
any excess of inflammation. No unhealthy hue in the countenance of
man or woman intimated any internal disease lurking within the body.
By far the greater part of the males go entirely naked, except a girdle,
which is made of a banana-leaf split into shreds, and tied round the
loins, not intended to answer the purpose of concealment; and they
differ from all other inhabitants of the Pacific in having no maro.
Some wear a turban; others a piece of paper cloth thrown over the
shoulders.
The huts of the Gambier Islanders are so small that they can only
be intended as sleeping-places during bad weather : they are in length
from eight or ten feet to fifteen, excepting the larger houses of the
areghe; they are built of the porou wood, and covered in with a
pointed roof thatched over with the leaves of the palm-tree. In some
the door is scarcely three feet high, and it is necessary to creep on all
fours to enter. On the inside they are neat, and the floor is covered
with mats or grass. The larger huts of the village on Mount Duff are
so constructed that one side can be conveniently removed, by winch
means they are rendered cool and comfortable.
The large house, or that of the areghe, was about thirty-nine feet
in length by eighteen or twenty in width; the pitch of the roof was
about twenty-five feet in height, and that of the perpendicular sides of
the house about ten fe e t; but these dimensions were obtained by
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tel
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