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the paper mulberry, the dress extending from the shoulders to the feet, in double folds, and so loose as entirely to conceal the shape of the person. The mothers, while nursing, carry the infant within their dress; as the child advances in growth it sits across the hip of the parent with its little hands clinging to the shoulder, while the mother's arm passing round it keeps it in safety. The men and boys, except on Sunday, when they appear in English dresses, generally wear only the mara, or waist-cloth, which, passing over the hips and between the legs, is knotted behind; the climate is in fact too hot for cumbersome clothing. The women, when working, use only a petticoat, with a jacket.

The men are stated to be from five feet eight inches to six feet high, of great muscular strength and excellent figures. "We did not see," says Captain Waldegrave," one cripple or defective person, except one boy, whom, in the most good-humoured way, and laughing heartily, they brought to me, observing, 'You ought to be brothers, you have each lost the right eye.' I acknowledged the connexion, and no doubt for the future he will be called the Captain."

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Captain Beechey has given a more detailed account of the physical qualities of the Pitcairn islanders. He says they are tall, robust, and healthy; their average height five feet ten inches; the tallest man measured six feet and one quarter of an inch, and the shortest of the adults five feet nine inches and one-eighth; their limbs well proportioned, round, and straight; their feet turning a little inwards. A boy of eight years measured four feet and one inch; another of nine years four feet three inches. Their simple food and early habits of exercise give them a muscular power and activity not often surpassed. It is recorded on the island that George Young and Edward Quintal have each carried at one time a kedge anchor, two sledge hammers, and

an armourer's anvil, weighing together upwards of six hundred pounds; and that Quintal once carried a boat twenty-eight feet in length. In the water they are almost as much at home as on land, and can remain almost a whole day in the sea. They frequently swim round their little island, the circuit of which is at the least seven miles; and the women are nearly as expert swimmers as the men.

The female descendants of the Otaheite women are almost as muscular as the males, and taller than the generality of the sex. Polly Young, who is not the tallest on the island, measured five feet nine inches and a half. The features of both men and women are regular and well formed; eyes bright and generally hazel, though in a few instances blue; the eyebrows thin and rarely meeting; the nose a little flattened, and being rather extended at the nostrils, partakes of the Otaheitan character, as do the lips, which are broad and strongly sulcated; their ears moderately large, and the lobes are invariably united with the cheek; they are generally perforated when young, for the reception of flowers, a very common custom among the natives of the South Sea islands; hair black, sometimes curling, sometimes straight; teeth regular and white. On the whole they are a well-looking people.

Captain Beechey says, the women have all learned the art of midwifery; that parturition generally takes place during the night-time; that the duration of labour is seldom longer than five hours, and has not yet in any case proved fatal; but there is no instance of twins, nor of a single miscarriage, except from accident. Infants are generally bathed three times a day in cold water, and are sometimes not weaned for three or four years; but when that does take place, they are fed upon "popoe," made of ripe plantains and boiled taro-root rubbed into a paste. Mr. Collie, the surgeon of the Blossom, remarks that nothing is more extraordinary in the history

of the island than the uniform good health of the children; the teething is easily got over, they have no bowel complaints, and are exempt from those contagious diseases which affect children in large communities. He offered to vaccinate the children as well as all the grown persons; but they deemed the risk of infection of small-pox to be too small to render that operation necessary.

As a proof how very much simple diet and constant exercise tend to the healthful state of the body, the skin of these people, though in such robust health, compared with that of the Europeans, always felt cold, and their pulses always considerably lower. The doctor examined several of them; in the forenoon he found George Young's only sixty; three others, in the afternoon, after dinner, were sixtyeight, seventy-two, and seventy-six, while those of the officers who stood the heat of the climate best were above eighty.

It is impossible not to feel a deep interest in the welfare of this little society, and at the same time an apprehension that something may happen to disturb that harmony and destroy that simplicity of manners which have hitherto characterized it. It is to be feared, indeed, that the seeds of discord are already sown. It appears from Captain Waldegrave's statement, that no less than three Englishmen have found their way into this happy_society. One of them, John Buffet, mentioned by Beechey, is a harmless man, and, as it has been stated, of great use to the islanders in his capacity of clergyman and schoolmaster; he is also a clever and useful mechanic, as a shipwright and joiner, and is much beloved by the community. Two others have since been left on the island, one of them, by name John Evans, son of a coachmaker in the employ of Long of St. Martin's Lane, who has married a daughter of John Adams, through whom he possesses and cultivates a certain portion of land; the third is

George Hunn Nobbs, who calls himself registrar, schoolmaster, &c., thus infringing on the privileges of John Buffet; and being a person of superior talents, and of exceeding great impudence, has deprived Buffet of a great number of his scholars; and hence a sufficient cause exists of division and dissension among the members of the little society, which were never known before. Buffet and Evans support themselves by their industry, but this Nobbs not only claims exemption from labour in virtue of his office, but also as being entitled to a maintenance at the expense of the community. He has married a daughter of Charles, and granddaughter to the late Fletcher Christian, whose descendants, as captain of the gang, might be induced to claim superiority, and which, probably, might be allowed by general consent, had they but possessed a moderate share of talent; but it is stated that Thursday October and Charles Christian, the sons of the chief mutineer, are ignorant, uneducated men. The only chance for the continuance of peace is the general dislike in which this Nobbs is held, and the gradual intellectual improvement of the rising generation.

It seems that Adams on his death-bed called all the heads of families together, and urged them to appoint a chief;-this, however, they have not done, which makes it the more to be apprehended that Nobbs, by his superior talent or cunning, will force himself upon them into that situation. Captain Waldegrave thinks, however, that Edward Quintal, who possesses the best understanding of any on the island, will in time arrive at that honour; his only book is the Bible, but it is quite astonishing, he observes, what a fund of knowledge he has derived from it. His wife, too, is stated to be a woman of excellent understanding; and their eldest boy, William, has been so carefully educated, that he excels greatly all the others. The descendants of Young

are also said to be persons generally of promising abilities.

How the patriarch Adams contrived to instil into the minds of these people the true principles of religion and morality is quite surprising. He was able to read, but only learned to write in his latter days; and having accomplished this point, he made a scheme of laws by which he succeeded to govern his little community in the way we have seen. The celebration of marriage and baptism were strictly observed according to the rites of the Church of England, but he never ventured on confirmation and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. He taught the children the church catechism, the ten commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the creed, and he satisfied himself that in these were comprised all the Christian duties. By the instrumentality of these precepts, drawn from the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible,* he was enabled, after the slaughter of all his associates, to rear up all the children in the principles and precepts of Christianity, in purity of morals, and in a simplicity of manners that have surprised and delighted every stranger that has visited the island.

The whole island, it seems, was partitioned out by Adams among the families of the original settlers, so that a foreigner cannot obtain any, except by

* Well may Adams have sought for rules for his little society in a book which contains the foundation of the civil and religious policy of two-thirds of the human race,-in that wonderful book, into whose inspired pages the afflicted never seek for consolation in vain. Millions of examples attest this truth. "There is no incident in Robinson Crusoe," observes a writer in a critical journal, "told in language more natural and affecting than Robert Knox's accidental discovery of a Bible in the midst of the Candian dominions of Ceylon. His previous despondency from the death of his father, his only friend and companion, whose grave he had but just dug with his own hands, being now,' as he says, 'left desolate, sick, and in captivity,'-his agitation, joy, and even terror on meeting with a book he had for such a length of time not seen, nor hoped to see-his anxiety lest he should fail to procure it-and the comfort, when procured, which it afforded him in his affliction-all are told in such a strain of true piety and genuine simplicity as cannot fail to interest and affect every reader of sensibility."

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