the name of certain islands in the South Sea, lying between 8 and 10 degrees of south latitude, and between 139 and 140 degrees of west longitude. They are five in number, viz. La Magdalena, St Pedro, La Dominica, Santa Christina, and Hood Islands. All the natives of these islands may be supposed to be of the same tribe. Those spots that are fit for culture are very populous; but as every island is very mountainous, and has many inaccessible and barren rocks, it is to be doubted whether the whole population of this group amounts to 50,000 persons. The Spaniards, who first visited here, found the manners of this people gentle and innocent; but these qualities did not prevent those who landed from wantonly butchering several of the natives at Magdalena.

The inhabitants of these islands collectively, says Captain Cook, are, without exception, the finest race of people in the South Sea. For symmetry of shape, and regular features, they perhaps surpass all other nations. Not a single deformed or ill-proportioned person was seen on the island; all were strong, tall, well-limbed, and remarkably active. The men are about five Marquesas five feet ten or six inches high; their teeth are not so good, nor are their eyes so full and lively, as those of many other nations: their hair is of many colours, but none red; some have it long, but the most general custom is to wear it short, except a bunch on each side the crown, which they tie in a knot: their countenances are pleasing, open, and full of vivacity: they are of a tawny complexion, which is rendered almost black by punctures over the whole body. They were entirely naked, except a small piece of cloth round their waist and loins. The punctures were disposed with the utmost regularity, so that the marks on each leg, arm, and cheek, were exactly similar. The women, in two days time, began to appear in considerable numbers, and the sailors found them not less kind than those of the other islands which they had visited: they were inferior to the men in stature, but well proportioned; their general colour was brown; no punctures were observed upon them; they wore a single piece of cloth made of the mulberry bark, which covered them from the shoulders to the knees.

The principal head-dress used in the islands, and what appear to be their chief ornament, is a sort of broad fillet, curiously made of the fibres of the hulls of cocoa-nuts; in the front is fixed a mother-of-pearl shell, wrought round to the size of a tea-saucer; before that another smaller, of very fine tortoise-shell, perforated into curious figures; also before, and in the centre of that, is another round piece of mother-of-pearl, about the size of half a crown; and before this another piece of perforated tortoise-shell, the size of a shilling. Besides this decoration in front, some have it also on each side, but in small pieces; and all have fixed to them the tail-feathers of cocks, or tropic-birds, which when the fillet is tied on stand upright, so that the whole together makes a very sprightly ornament. They wear round the neck a kind of ruff or necklace made of light wood, the outward and upper sides covered with small pease, which are fixed on with gum; they also wear some bunches of human hair fastened to a string, and tied round the legs and arms. But all the above ornaments are seldom seen on the same person. All these ornaments, except the last, they freely parted with for a trifling consideration; but the human hair they valued very highly, though these bunches were the usual residence of many vermin. It is probable, that these were worn in remembrance of their deceased relations, and therefore were looked upon with some veneration; or they may be the spoils of their enemies, worn as the honourable testimonies of victory. However, a large nail, or something which struck their eyes, commonly got the better of their scruples. The king, or chief of the island, came to visit Captain Cook; he was the only one seen completely dressed in this manner. Their ordinary ornaments are necklaces, and amulets made of shells, &c. All of them had their ears pierced, though none were seen with ear-rings. The king had not much respect paid him by his attendants: he presented Captain Cook with some fruit and hogs; and acquainted him that his name was Honoo, and that he was he-ka-at, which title seems to correspond with the aree of Otaheitee, and aree of the Friendly Isles. Their dwellings are in the valleys, and on the sides of the hills near their plantations. They are built in the same manner as those at Otaheitee, which will be particularly described when we speak of that island; but they are much meaner, and are only covered with the leaves of the bread-fruit tree: in general, they are built on a square or oblong pavement of stone, raised some height above the level of the ground; they likewise have such pavement near their houses, on which they sit to eat and amuse themselves. Along the uppermost edge of the mountain a row of stakes or palliades, closely connected together, were seen like a fortification, in which, by the help of glasses, appeared something like huts, which seemed to bear a great resemblance to the hipped of New-Zealand, which will be described in speaking of that country. Their canoes resemble those of Otaheitee, but not so large; their heads had commonly some flat upright piece, on which the human face was coarsely carved; and their sails were made of mats, triangular in shape, and very broad at the top: the paddles which they used were of heavy hard wood; short, but sharp-pointed, and with a knob at the upper end; they were from 10 to 20 feet long, and about 15 inches broad.

Their weapons were all made of the club-wood, or casuarina; and were either plain spears about 8 or 10 feet long, or clubs which commonly had a knob at one end. They have also slings with which they throw stones with great velocity, and to a great distance, but not with a good aim.

The language of these people is much nearer to that of Otaheitee than any other dialect in the South-Sea, except that they could not pronounce the letter r.

The only quadrupeds seen here were hogs, except rats; here were fowls, and several small birds in the woods, whose notes were very melodious. The chief difference between the inhabitants of the Marquesas and those of the Society Islands seems to consist in their different degrees of cleanliness: the former do not bathe two or three times a-day, nor wash their hands and face before and after every meal, as the latter do; and they are befeids very slovenly in the manner of preparing their meals. Their diet is chiefly vegetable; though they have hogs and fowls, and catch abundance of fish at certain times. Their drink is pure water, cocoa-nuts being scarce here.

It was not long before the propensity of the natives was discovered to be rather to receive than give; for when they had taken a nail as the price of a bread-fruit, the article so purchased could not be obtained from them. To remove this dishonest disposition, captain Cook ordered a musket to be fired over their heads, which terrified them into fair-dealing.

Soon after the natives had gathered courage enough to venture on board the ship, one of them unfortunately stole an iron stanchion from the gang-way, with which he sprang into the sea, and, notwithstanding its weight, swam with it to his canoe, and was making to the shore with all speed. A musket was fired over his head to frighten him back, but to no effect, he still continued to make off with his booty; the whistling of another ball over his head was as ineffectual: an officer, less patient of such an injury than reason and humanity should have taught him to be, levelled a musket at the poor fellow, and shot him thro' the head. Captain Cook had given orders to fire over Marquesas, the canoe, but not to kill any one; he was in a boat, Marquetry, and came up with the canoe soon after. There were two men in her: one fat bailing out the blood and water in a kind of hysterical laugh; the other, a youth of about 14 or 15 years of age, who afterwards proved to be the son of the deceased, fixed his eyes on the dead body with a serious and dejected countenance. This act of severity, however, did not estrange the islanders to the ship, and a traffic was carried on to the satisfaction of both parties; bread-fruit, bananas, plantains, and some hogs, were given in exchange for small nails, knives, and pieces of Amsterdam cloth; red feathers of the Amsterdam-Island were greatly esteemed here. Captain Cook, accompanied with the gentlemen of the ship, in their walks about the country, lighted on the house which had been the habitation of the man who had been shot; there they found his son, who fled at their approach: they enquired for his female relations, and were told that they remained at the top of the mountain, to weep and mourn for the dead. Notwithstanding they were then among the relations of a man who had been killed by them, not the least tokens of animosity or revenge were discernible among the natives.

The weather being extremely hot, the inhabitants made use of large fans to cool themselves, of which great numbers were purchased; these fans were formed of a kind of tough bark, or grass, very firmly and curiously plaited, and frequently whitened with shell-lime. Some had large feathered leaves of a kind of palm, which answered the purpose of an umbrella.

The natives at length became so familiar as to mount the sides of the ship in great numbers. They frequently danced upon deck for the diversion of the sailors; their dances very much resembled those of Otaheitee; their music too was very much the same.

A sailor having been inattentive to his duty, received several blows from Captain Cook; on seeing which, the natives exclaimed, "tape-ta bete tina," "he beats his brother." From other instances that had occurred, it was clear that they knew the difference between the commander and his people, but at the same time they conceived them all brethren; and, says Mr Forster, "to me the most natural inference is, that they only applied an idea to us in this case, which really existed with regard to themselves; they probably look on themselves as one family, of which the eldest born is the chief or king."