OF THE TONGA PEOPLE.

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but very seldom, use infusions of a few plants,which produce, however, no sensible effect,either upon the system or upon the disease,and we may readily conceive in how littleesteem such remedies are held when the king’sdaughter, whose life so great pains were takento preserve, took none of them, nor did any onethink of proposing them. The idea of givingthese infusions was first taken from the nativesof the Fiji islands, who have the repute ofbeing skilful in the management of internal re-medies : and though almost all the surgicaloperations known and practised at the Tonga islands have avowedly been borrowed from thesame source, and followed up with a consider-able degree of skill and success, yet the Tonga people have generally failed in the former, andfor the cure of constitutional ailments dependupon the mercy of the gods, without any inter-ference on their own parts, except in the wayof invocation and sacrifice. In such a state ofthings, it would be natural to suppose that theyfrequently make use of charms, amulets, &c. toassist in the cure ; but this, however, is neverdone, for they have not the most distant ideaof this sort of superstition, which prevails somuch over almost all the world, even in themost civilized countries. The natives of theSandwich islands, however, appear to have a