A people so lively, sprightly, and good-humoured as the Otaheitans are, must necessarily have their amusements.  They are fond of music, such as is derived from a rude flute and a drum; of dancing, wrestling, shooting with the bow, and throwing the lance.  They exhibit frequent trials of skill and strength in wrestling; and Cook says it is scarcely possible for those who are acquainted with the athletic sports of very remote antiquity, not to remark a rude resemblance of them in a wrestling-match (which he describes) among the natives of a little island in the midst of the Pacific Ocean.

But these simple-minded people have their vices, and great ones too.  Chastity is almost unknown among a certain description of women:  there is a detestable society called Arreoy, composed, it would seem, of a particular class, who are supposed to be the chief warriors of the island.  In this society the men and women live in common; and on the birth of a child it is immediately smothered, that its bringing up may not interfere with the brutal pleasures of either father or mother.  Another savage practice is that of immolating human beings at the Morais, which serve as temples as well as sepulchres, and yet, by the report of the missionaries, they entertain a due sense and reverential awe of the Deity.  ‘With regard to their worship,’ Captain Cook does the Otaheitans but justice in saying, ’they reproach many who bear the name of Christians.  You see no instances of an Otaheitan drawing near the Eatooa with carelessness and inattention; he is all devotion; he approaches the place of worship with reverential awe; uncovers when he treads on sacred ground; and prays with a fervour that would do honour to a better profession.  He firmly credits the traditions of his ancestors.  None dares dispute the existence of the Deity.’  Thieving may also be reckoned as one of their vices; this, however, is common to all uncivilized nations, and, it may be added, civilized too.  But to judge them fairly in this respect, we should compare their situation with that of a more civilized people.  A native of Otaheite goes on board a ship and finds himself in the midst of iron bolts, nails, knives, scattered about, and is tempted to carry off a few of them.  If we could suppose a ship from El Dorado to arrive in the Thames, and that the custom-house officers, on boarding her, found themselves in the midst of bolts, hatchets, chisels, all of solid gold, scattered about the deck, one need scarcely say what would be likely to happen.  If the former found the temptation irresistible to supply himself with what was essentially useful—­the latter would be as little able to resist that which would contribute to the indulgence of his avarice or the gratification of his pleasures, or of both.