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[Page 393]

Manners & customs of S. Sea Islands

We have now seen 17 Islands in these Seas & been ashore upon 5 of the most principal ones of these the Language manners & customs have agreed almost exactly I should therefore be tempted to conclude that those of the Islands we have not seen differ not materialy at least from them The account I shall give of them is taken cheifly from Otahite where I was well acquainted with their most interior policy as I found them to be a people so free from deceit that I trusted myself among them almost as freely as I could do in my own countrey sleeping continualy in their houses in the woods with not so much as a single companion. Whither or not I am right in judging their manners & customs to be general throughout these seas any one who gives himself the trouble of reading this Journal through will be as good a Judge as myself

All the Islands I have seen are very populous all along the sea coast where are generaly large flats coverd with a vast many breadfruit & Cocoa nut trees here are houses almost every 50 yards with their little plantations of Plantains the tree that makes their cloth &c. but the inland parts are totaly uninhabited except in the vallies where are rivers & even there are but a small propotion of people

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