Page 105

Cook's Descriptions of Places

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Savu (continued) they seldom end so long as the giver has got any thing left alive upon his Estate. They are said to be a people of good morals, Virtuous and Chaste, each man having only one wife which he keeps for life    Fornication and Adultery is hardly known among them. When a great Man Marries he makes presents to all his wifes Relations of European and other foreign commodities to the Value of 100 Rix-Dollars    this custom the Dutch East India Company find it their intrest to incourage. They speake a Language peculiar to themselves into which the Dutch have caused the Bible and New-Testament to be Translated and have interduced them it with the use of letters and writing among them; by this means several hundreds of them have been converted to Christianity, the rest are either ^some Heathens or ^and others of no Religion attall, and yet they all Stick up to the strick'd rules of Morality. They all both men and women Young and old Chew of the Beetle Leaf, Araeca Nutts, and a sort of white lime which I beleive is made from Coral ^Stone this has such an effect upon the teeth that very few even of the young people have hardly any left in their heads and those they have are as black as Ink; their houses are built on post[s] about 4 feet from the Ground, we ask'd the reason why they built them so, and was told that it was only custom, they are however certainly Voyaging Accounts © Transcribed from National Library of Australia Manuscript 1 page 320, 2004 Published by South Seas To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook_remarks-105