Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/16

viii a young man belonging to the crew of the Port au Prince made his escape from the Tonga Islands about thirteen months before Mr. Mariner, that is to say, after a residence there of two years and eleven months. Being very young, he was one of the first who acquired a tolerable knowledge of the language; he practised their dances, and learned their songs;—and although he had not the advantage of those better opportunities which fell in Mr. Mariner's way, and consequently is not so intimately acquainted, in certain points of view, with the political sentiments, and moral notions and habits especially of the higher classes of the natives, which the superior education of the latter, as well as his relative condition among the Tonga chiefs, rendered him more apt to acquire;—still, the information obtained from Higgins must undoubtedly be considered valuable, if only regarded as generally corroborative, and in a few instances