5. But while our late voyages have opened so many channels to an increase of knowledge in the several articles already enumerated; while they have extended our acquaintance with the contents of the globe; while they have facilitated old tracks, and opened new ones for commerce; while they have been the means of improving the skill of the navigator, and the science of the astronomer; while they have procured to us so valuable accessions in the several departments of natural history, and furnished such opportunities of teaching us how to preserve the healths and lives of seamen, let us not forget another very important object of study, for which they have afforded to the speculative philosopher ample materials; I mean the study of human nature in various situations, equally interesting as they are uncommon.
However remote or secluded from frequent intercourse with more polished nations the inhabitants of any parts of the world be, if history or our own observation should make it evident that they have been formerly visited, and that foreign manners and opinions, and languages, have been blended with their own, little use can be made of what is observed amongst such people toward drawing a real picture of man in his natural uncultivated state. This seems to be the situation of the inhabitants of most of the islands that lie contiguous to the continent of Asia, and of whose manners and institutions the Europeans, who occasionally visit them, have frequently given us accounts. But the islands which our enterprising discoverers visited in the centre of the South Pacific Ocean, and are indeed the principal scenes of their operations, were untrodden ground. The inhabitants, as far as could be observed, were unmixed with any different tribe, by occasional intercourse, subsequent to their original settlement there; left entirely to their own powers for every art of life, and to their own remote traditions for every political or religions custom or institution; uninformed by science; unimproved by education; in short, a fit soil from whence a careful observer could collect facts for forming a judgment, how far unassisted human nature will be apt to degenerate, and in what respects it can ever be able to excel. Who could have thought, that the brutal ferocity of feeding upon human flesh, and the horrid superstition of offering human sacrifices, should be found to exist amongst the natives lately discovered in the Pacific Ocean, who, in other respects, appear to be no strangers to the fine feelings of humanity, to have arrived at a certain stage of social life, and to be habituated to subordination and government, which tend so naturally to repress the ebullitions of wild passion, and expand the latent powers of the understanding?
Or, if we turn from this melancholy picture, which will suggest copious matter for philosophical speculation, can we, without astonishment, observe to what a degree of perfection the same tribe (and indeed we may here join, in some of those instances, the American tribes visited in the course of the present voyage) have carried their favourite amusements, the plaintive songs of their women, their dramatic entertainments, their dances, their olympian games, as we may call them, the orations of their chiefs, the chants of their priests, the solemnity of their religious processions, their arts and manufactures, their ingenious contrivances to supply the want of proper materials, and of effective tools and machines, and the wonderful productions of their persevering labour under a complication of disadvantages, their cloth and their mats, their weapons, their fishing instruments, their ornaments, their utensils, which in design and in execution may vie with whatever modern Europe or classical antiquity can exhibit?
It is a favourite study with the scholar to trace the remains of Grecian or Roman workmanship; he turns over his Montfaucon with learned satisfaction; and he gazes with rapture on the noble collection of Sir William Hamilton. The amusement is rational and instructive. But will not his curiosity be more awakened, will he not find even more real matter for important reflection, by passing an hour in surveying the numerous specimens of the ingenuity of our newly-discovered friends, brought from the utmost recesses of the globe to enrich the British Museum, and the valuable repository of Sir Ashton Lever? If the curiosities of Sir Ashton's Sandwich-room alone were the only acquisition gained by our visits to the Pacific Ocean, who, that has taste to admire, or even eyes to behold, could hesitate to pronounce that Captain Cook had not sailed in vain? The expence of his three voyages did not, perhaps, far exceed that of digging out the buried contents of Herculaneum. And we may add, that the novelties of the Society or Sandwich Islands seem better calculated to engage the attention of the studious in our times, than the antiquities which exhibit proofs of Roman magnificence.
The grounds for making this remark cannot be better explained, than in the words of a very ingenious writer: " In an age," says Mr Warton,[57] "advanced to the highest degree of refinement, that species of curiosity commences, which is busied in contemplating the progress of social life, in displaying the gradation of science, and in tracing the transition from barbarism to civility. That these speculations should become the favourite topics of such a period, is extremely natural. We look back on the savage condition of our ancestors with the triumph of superiority; and are pleased to mark the steps by which we have been raised from rudeness to elegance; and our reflections on this subject are accompanied with a conscious pride, arising, in a great measure, from a tacit comparison of the infinite disproportion between the feeble efforts of remote ages, and our present improvements in knowledge. In the mean time, the manners, monuments, customs, practices, and opinions of antiquity, by forming so strong a contrast with those of our own times, and by exhibiting human nature and human inventions in new lights, in unexpected appearances, and in various forms, are objects which forcibly strike a feeling imagination. Nor does this spectacle afford nothing more than a fruitless gratification to the fancy. It teaches us to set a just estimation on our own acquisitions, and encourages us to cherish that cultivation, which is so closely connected with the existence and the exercise of every social virtue." We need not here observe, that the manners, monuments, customs, practices, and opinions of the present inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean, or of the west side of North America, form the strongest contrast with those of our own time in polished Europe; and that a feeling imagination will probably be more struck with the narration of the ceremonies of a Natche at Tongataboo, than of a Gothic tournament at London; with the contemplation of the colossuses of Easter Island, than of the mysterious remains of Stonehenge.[58]
[Footnote 57: Preface to his History of English Poetry.]
[Footnote 58: This may be disputed, both in point of fact, and on principles of reasoning. As to the first, the fact, let readers in general enquire as to the comparative degree and frequency of attention bestowed on the different kinds of topics alluded to by the doctor. What is the conclusion from their observations on the subject? The writer for one, does not hesitate to assert, that he is convinced, the evidence bears against the opinion of the learned editor. So far as his notice extends, it appears, that the fooleries of a superstitious age, the lies of legendary fabulists, the incomprehensible relics of long-forgotten delusions, really obtain more regard as objects of curiosity, than whatever of ingenuity or labour is to be found in the history of presently existing savages. Then again as to the reasons for such a preference. Is there not a sort of fashionable taste for the productions of antiquity, the want of which is quite unpardonable in our polished and literary circles? Does not the attainment of this taste, in any meritorious degree, by necessarily requiring much study, operate as preclusive of information to the possession of which no peculiar epithet of a commendatory nature has hitherto been awarded? Nay, is there not a sort of prejudice allied to a notion of vulgarity, directed against almost any shew of acquaintance with the habits and histories of uncultivated nations? But it would be unpardonable to imagine, there were not other reasons of a less invidious nature to explain the fact. We must certainly be allowed to pay higher respect to the particular concerns of those people with whom we stand in the light of offspring or relatives, or whose transactions and fates have rendered the history of the world what it is, almost superlatively important to every intelligent mind. If time shall witness the triumph of civilization over the savages of the southern hemisphere, then, it is highly probable, a similar enthusiasm will prevail among their literary descendants; and objects regarded by us as mere dust in the high road of nature, will be enshrined with all the partiality and fondness of national idolatry.--E.]
Many singularities, respecting what may be called the natural history of the human species, in different climates, will, on the authority of our late navigators, open abundant sources for philosophical discussion. One question of this sort, in particular, which had formerly divided the opinions of the inquisitive, as to the existence, if not of "giants on the earth," at least of a race, (inhabiting a district bordering on the north side of the strait of Magalhaens,) whose stature considerably exceeds that of the bulk of mankind, will no longer be doubted or disbelieved. And the ingenious objections of the sceptical author of Recherches sur les Americains,[59] will weigh nothing in the balance against the concurrent and accurate testimony of Byron, Wallis, and Carteret.
[Footnote 59: Tom. i. p. 331.]
Perhaps there cannot be a more interesting enquiry than to trace the migrations of the various families or tribes that have peopled the globe; and in no respect have our late voyages been more fertile in curious discoveries. It was known in general, (and I shall use the words of Kaempfer,[60]) that the Asiatic nation called Malayans "in former times, had by much the greatest trade in the Indies, and frequented with their merchant ships, not only all the coasts of Asia, but ventured even over to the coasts of Africa, particularly to the great island of Madagascar.[61] The title which the king of the Malayans assumed to himself, of Lord of the Winds and Seas to the East and to the West, is an evident proof of this; but much more the Malayan language, which spread most all over the East, much after the same manner as formerly the Latin, and of late the French, did all over Europe." Thus far, I say, was known. But that from Madagascar to the Marqueses and Easter Island, that is, nearly from the east side of Africa, till we approach toward the west side of America, a space including above half the circumference of the globe, the same tribe or nation, the Phoenicians, as we may call them, of the oriental world, should have made their settlements, and founded colonies throughout almost every intermediate stage of this immense tract, in islands at amazing distances from the mother continent, and ignorant of each other's existence; this is an historical fact, which could be but very imperfectly known before Captain Cook's two first voyages discovered so many new-inhabited spots of land lurking in the bosom of the South Pacific Ocean; and it is a fact which does not rest solely on similarity of customs and institutions, but has been established by the most satisfactory of all proofs, that drawn from affinity of language. Mr Marsden, who seems to have considered this curious subject with much attention, says, "that the links of the latitudinal chain remain yet to be traced."[40] The discovery of the Sandwich Islands in this last voyage, has added some links to the chain. But Captain Cook had not an opportunity of carrying his researches into the more westerly parts of the North Pacific. The reader, therefore, of the following work will not, perhaps, think that the editor was idly employed when he subjoined some notes, which contain abundant proof that the inhabitants of the Ladrones, or Marianne islands, and those of the Carolines, are to be traced to the same common source, with those of the islands visited by our ships. With the like view of exhibiting a striking picture of the amazing extent of this oriental language, which marks, if not a common original, at least an intimate intercourse between the inhabitants of places so very remote from each other, he has inserted a comparative table of their numerals, upon a more enlarged plan than any that has hitherto been executed.