Supposing that this island had been extremely remote from every other country, and that the Spaniards, after conquering it, had held no further communication with any civilized land, at the end of a century or two the language and the manners would have assimilated, but there would have been two castes, one of lords, enjoying all the advantages, the other of serfs, charged with all the burdens.

This theory seems to have been realized anciently in Hindostan; but if we must credit the tradition of the Sandwich-islanders, their country was originally peopled by a man and woman, who came to Owyhee in a canoe.

Unless, then, they mean that this man and woman came with their slaves, and that the _Eris_ are descended from the first, and the _Tootoos_ from the last, they ought to attribute to each other the same origin, and consequently regard each other as equals, and even as brothers, according to the manner of thinking that prevails among savages.

The cause of the slavery of women among most barbarous tribes is more easily explained: the men have subjected them by the right of the strongest, if ignorance and superstition have not caused them to be previously regarded as beings of an inferior nature, made to be servants and not companions.[G] [Footnote F: The _Tootoos_ and all the women, the wives of the king and principal chiefs excepted, are eternally condemned to the use of fruits and vegetables; dogs and pigs being exclusively reserved for the table of the _Eris_.] [Footnote G: Some Indian tribes think that women have no souls, but die altogether like the brutes; others assign them a different paradise from that of men, which indeed they might have reason to prefer for themselves, unless their relative condition were to be ameliorated in the next world.].