Their Religion Does Not Seem Likely To Be An Obstacle,
Because From What We Could Judge, They Are Not Remarkably
Superstitious, and it is only among very bigotted nations that the
custom of offering human flesh to the gods, has
Prevailed after
civilization." - These are evidently hasty speculations, and by no
means conclusive, but they point with tolerable clearness to some
principle of human nature adequate, independent of necessity, to
account for the practice, and shew in what manner the investigation
into its nature, causes, and remedy, ought to be carried on. - E.
[10] "The officers and passengers entered upon this second cruise
under several difficulties, which did not exist before. They had now
no livestock to be compared to that which they took from the Cape of
Good Hope; and the little store of provisions, which had supplied
their table with variety in preference to that of the common sailor,
was now so far consumed, that they were nearly upon a level,
especially as the seamen were inured to that way of life, by constant
habit, almost from their infancy; and the others had never experienced
it before. The hope of meeting with new lands was vanished, the topics
of common conversation were exhausted, the cruise to the south could
not present any thing new, but appeared in all its chilling horrors
before us, and the absence of our consort doubled every danger. We had
enjoyed a few agreeable days between the tropics, we had feasted as
well as the produce of various islands would permit, and we had been
entertained with the novelty of many objects among different nations;
but according to the common vicissitudes of fortune, this agreeable
moment was to be replaced by a long period of fogs and frosty weather,
of fasting, and of tedious uniformity.
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