This merely apparent difference of statement is quite easily understood, by what one may witness in some other countries, where respect for the ecclesiastical office is not unfrequently accompanied with the most thoroughly merited contempt of the self-degraded hirelings that sustain it.  The three-bottle vicar still continues in England, to obtain the accustomed reverence to his surplice, from the wondering parishioners, though the companions of his jovial hours have long ceased to feel the slightest compunctions arising from inward respect, when they laugh at his heinously red nose, or chorus in his ribaldry.  The islanders of the South Sea are not singular then, in mentally disjoining official dignity from moral excellence.—­E.

[8] “Here, however, as in all other societies of men, we found exceptions to the general character, and had reason to lament the behaviour of vicious individuals.  Dr Sparrman and myself having left the beach where the Latoo attracted the attention of all our people, entered the wood in pursuit of farther discoveries in our branch of science.  The first discharge of my fowling-piece at a bird brought three natives towards us, with whom we entered into conversation, as far as our superficial knowledge of their tongue would permit.  Soon after, Dr Sparrman stepped aside into a thicket in search of a bayonet, which he had lost from the end of his musket.  One of the natives, finding the temptation of the moment irresistible, grasped my fowling-piece, and struggled to wrest it from me.  I called to my companion, and the two other natives ran away, unwilling to become the accomplices in this attack.  In the struggle, our feet were entangled in a bush, and we both fell together; but the native, seeing he could not gain his point, and perhaps dreading the arrival of Dr Sparrman, got up before me, and took that opportunity of running off.  My friend joined me immediately; and we concluded, that if there was something treacherous or vicious in the behaviour of this fellow, our separation was also imprudent, because it had furnished him with an opportunity to exercise his talents.”—­G.F.

[9] “We had made such good use of the four months, after our departure from New Zealand, as to have crossed the South Sea in the middle latitudes, in the depth of winter, examined a space of more than forty degrees of longitude between the tropics, and refreshed our people at Otaheite, the Society Islands, and the Friendly Islands, during one and thirty days.  The season for prosecuting our discoveries in high southern latitudes advanced, and the savage rocks of New Zealand were only to give us shelter, whilst we changed our fair-weather rigging, for such as might resist the storms and vigours of more inhospitable climates.”—­G.F.

SECTION III.

A Description of the Islands and their Produce; with the Cultivation, Houses, Canoes, Navigation, Manufactures, Weapons, Customs, Government, Religion, and Language of the Inhabitants. [1]