re rendered subservient to political
purposes, as by the machinery of deification the person of the king is
sacred and inviolable. Notwithstanding the king be a broad shouldered
strapping fellow, three sturdy stallions of _cecisbeos_, or lords in
waiting, are kept for the particular amusement of the queen, when his
majesty is in his cups. Yet the royal issue is always declared to be
sprung from the immortal Gods; and the heir-apparent, during his
minority, is put under the tuition of the high priest. Their God is
supposed to be omnipresent, and is worshipped in spirit, idolatry not
being known amongst them. The sacred mysteries are only known to the
priests or augurs, the king, princes, and great chiefs, the common people
only serving as victims, or to fill up the pageantry of a religious
procession. One of our gentlemen expressing a wish to the high priest,
of carrying from amongst them that God whose altars craved so much human
blood, he, like a true priest, had his subterfuge ready, by saying, there
were more of the same family in the other islands, from whence they could
easily be supplied. On all great occasions, each district sends a male
victim; and the island containing forty districts, it may be presumed the
mortality is great. Between the sacrifices and the ravages of war, a
preponderating number of females must have taken place; to counteract
which, a law passed, that every other female child should be put to death
at birth; and the husband always officiating as acoucheur to his wife,
the child is destroyed as soon as the sex is discovered.

The absurdity of this inhuman law is now pretty evident. Women are become
more scarce, and set a higher value on their charms, which occasions many
desperate battles amongst them. Some with fractured skulls were sent on
board of us, which had been got in amorous affrays of that kind.

It may naturally be supposed, that people of such gentle natures make no
conspicuous figure in the theatre of war.

Their war-canoes are very large, on which a platform is placed, capable
of containing from a hundred and fifty to two hundred men. But their
taste in decorating the prow of their men of war, plainly indicates they
are more versed in the fields of Venus than Mars, every man of war having
a figure head of the god Priapus, with a preposterous insignia of his
order; the sight of which never fails to excite great glee and good
humour amongst the ladies.

It is customary with thos