They appeared to be a healthy and long-lived people; yet some of them were marked with the small-pox, which Mr. Lange told us had several times made its appearance among them, and was treated with the same precautions as the plague. As soon as a person was seized with the distemper, he was removed to some solitary place, very remote from any habitation, where the disease was left to take its course, and the patient supplied with daily food by reaching it to him at the end of a long pole.

Of their domestic 'conomy we could learn but little: in one instance however their delicacy and cleanliness are very remarkable. Many of us were ashore here three successive days, from a very early hour in the morning till it was dark; yet we never saw the least trace of an offering to Cloacina, nor could we so much as guess where they were made. In a country so populous this is very difficult to be accounted for, and perhaps there is no other country in the world where the secret is so effectually kept.

Voyaging Accounts