doomed to a perpetual fire; while the souls of all who die a natural death, ascend to the habitations of the gods. And, from Le Gobien, we learn that this very notion is adopted by his islanders--_Si on a le malkeur de mourir de mort violente, on a l'enfer pour leur portage._ Surely such a concurrence of very characteristic conformities cannot be the result of mere accident; and, when combined with the specimens of affinity of language mentioned at the beginning of this note, it should seem that we are fully warranted, from premises thus unexceptionable, to draw a certain conclusion, that the inhabitants of the various islands discovered or visited by Captain Cook in the South Pacific Ocean, and those whom the Spaniards found settled upon the Ladrones or Mariannes, in the northern hemisphere, carried the same language, customs, and opinions from one common centre, from which they had emigrated; and that, therefore, they may be considered as scattered members of the same nation. See Pere Le Gobien's _Histoire des Iles Mariannes_, Book ii. or the summary of it in _Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes_, T. ii. p. 492-512, from which the materials for this note have been extracted.--D.] As in such a life, their women must contribute a very large share of its happiness, it is rather surprising, besides the humiliating restraints they are laid under with regard to food, to find them often treated with a degree of harshness, or rather brutality, which one would scarcely suppose a man would bestow on an object for whom he had the least affection. Nothing, however, is more common, than to see the men beat them without mercy; and, unless this treatment is the effect of jealousy, which both sexes, at least, pretend to be sometimes infected with, it will be difficult to account for it. It will be less difficult to admit this as the motive, as I have seen several instances where the women have preferred personal beauty to interest; though, I must own, that even in these cases, they seem scarcely susceptible of those delicate sentiments that are the result of mutual affection; and, I believe, that there is less Platonic love in Otaheite than in any other country.