er.

Wah'rebo, the fourth, a son.

The children do not address their parents by any word corresponding to
father or mother, papa or mamma, but by their names. Their parents treat
them on the footing of equality; they are generally well behaved, and
are never punished, except occasionally when impatient for their food.

Their language appears to be different from those of the other islands
in that quarter; we found that the three natives of the Pelew islands,
that accompanied us, could not understand any thing they said; though I
observed afterwards, occasionally, a resemblance in two or three words.
The reader will, however, be enabled to judge for himself, by means of a
short vocabulary of common words which will be found at the end of this
narrative. I may add, that the Pelew chiefs had never heard of Lord
North's island; but they are acquainted with the _Caroline_ islands.

A detail of all that befell us would serve only to give pain to the
benevolent, or at most to show how much human beings can endure. I shall
attempt but little more than to describe the sufferings of a day;
observing once for all, that for the term of two long years we
experienced the same privations, and were subjected to the same brutal
treatment; life, during all that time, being no better than the constant
succession of the most acute sufferings.

This island, unlike the Pelews, is one of the most horrible and wretched
on the face of the globe. The only product of its soil worth mentioning
is the cocoa-tree; and those are of so dwarfish and miserable a growth
as to bear but very few nuts. These few, however, constitute the food of
the inhabitants, with the exception of a species of fish caught
occasionally near the shore. The only animals or creeping things known
on the island are lizards and mice, and, during our stay there, scarcely
a solitary sea-fowl was known to have alighted on the island, and but
few fish were taken by the natives.

The character of the inhabitants much resembles that of the island
itself. Cowardly and servile, yet most barbarous and cruel, they
combine, in their habits, tempers, and dispositions, the most
disgusting and loathsome features that disgrace humanity. And, what may
be regarded as remarkable, the female portion of the inhabitants
outstrip the men in cruelty and savage depravity; so much so, that we
were frequently indebted to the tender mercies of the men for escapes
from death at the hands of the women