ter which it is fit for drinking,
and this is always done immediately. It has a pepperish taste, drinks flat,
and rather insipid. But, though it is intoxicating I only saw one instance
where it had that effect, as they generally drink it with great moderation,
and but little at a time. Sometimes they chew this root in their mouths,
as Europeans do tobacco, and swallow their spittle; and sometimes I have
seen them eat it wholly.

At Ulietea they cultivate great quantities of this plant. At Otaheite but
very little. I believe there are but few islands in this sea, that do not
produce more or less of it; and the natives apply it to the same use, as
appears by Le Mair's account of Horn Island, in which he speaks of the
natives making a liquor from a plant in the same manner as above mentioned.

Great injustice has been done the women of Otaheite, and the Society isles,
by those who have represented them, without exception, as ready to grant
the last favour to any man who will come up to their price. But this is by
no means the case; the favours of married women, and also the unmarried of
the better sort, are as difficult to be obtained here, as in any other
country whatever. Neither can the charge be understood indiscriminately of
the unmarried of the lower class, for many of these admit of no such
familiarities. That there are prostitutes here, as well as in other
countries, is very true, perhaps more in proportion, and such were those
who came on board the ships to our people, and frequented the post we had
on shore. By seeing these mix indiscriminately with those of a different
turn, even of the first rank, one is at first inclined to think that they
are all disposed the same way, and that the only difference is in the
price. But the truth is, the woman who becomes a prostitute does not seem,
in their opinion, to have committed a crime of so deep a dye as to exclude
her from the esteem and society of the community in general. On the whole,
a stranger who visits England might, with equal justice, draw the
characters of the women there, from those which he might meet with on board
the ships in one of the naval ports, or in the purlieus of Covent-Garden
and Drury-Lane. I must however allow, that they are all completely versed
in the art of coquetry, and that very few of them fix any bounds to their
conversation. It is therefore no wonder that they have obtained the
character of libertines.

To what hath been said of the ge