The islands visited in the centre of the south Pacific Ocean, and the principal scenes of the operations of our discoverers, were untrodden ground.

As the inhabitants, so far as could be observed, had continued, from their original settlement unmixed with any different tribe; as they had been left entirely to their own powers for every art of life, and to their own remote traditions for every political or religious custom or institution; as they were uninformed by science, and unimproved by education, they could not but afford many subjects of speculation to an inquisitive and philosophical mind.

Hence may be collected a variety of important facts with respect to the state of man; with respect to his attainments and deficiences, his virtue and vices, his employments and diversions, his feelings, manners, and customs, in a certain period of society.

Even the curiosities which have been brought from the discovered islands, and which enrich the British Museum, and the late Sir Ashton Lever's repository, may be considered as a valuable acquisition to this country; as supplying no small fund of information and entertainment.
Few inquiries are more interesting than those which relate to the migrations of the various families or tribes that have peopled the earth.

It was known in general, that the Asiatic nation, called Malayans, possessed, in former times, much the greatest trade in the Indies; and that they frequented, with their merchant ships, not only all the coasts of Asia, but ventured over even to the coasts of Africa, and particularly to the great island of Madagascar.