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tribution of them previously to my departure. With this view, in the evening of the 19th, I assembled all the chiefs before our house, and my intended presents to them were marked out. To Poulaho, the King, I gave a young English bull and cow; to Mareewagee, a Cape ram and two ewes; and to Feenou a horse and a mare. As my design to make such a distribution had been made known the day before, most of the people in the neighbourhood were then present. I instructed Omai to tell them that there were no such animals within many months' sail of their island; that we had brought them for their use from that immense distance, at a vast trouble and expense; that therefore they must be careful not to kill any of them till they had multiplied to a numerous race; and lastly, that they and their children ought to remember that they had received them from the men of "Britane. He also explained to them their several uses, and what else was necessary for them to know, or rather as far as he knew; for Omai was not very well versed in such things himself. As I intended that the above presents should remain with the other cattle till we were ready to sail, I desired each of the chiefs to send a man or two to look after their respective animals along with my people, in order that they might be better acquainted with them, and with the manner of treating them. The King and Feenou did so, but neither Mareewagee, nor any other person for him, took the least notice of the sheep afterwards; nor did old Toubou attend at this meeting, though he was invited, and was in the neighbourhood. I had meant to give him the goats, viz., a ram and two ewes, which, as he was so indifferent about them, I added to the King's share.

It soon appeared that some were dissatisfied with this allotment of our animals; for early next morning one of our kids and two turkey cocks were missing. I could not be so simple as to suppose that this was merely an accidental loss; and I was determined to

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have them again. The first step I took was to seize on three canoes that happened to be alongside the ships. I then went ashore, and having found the King, his brother, Feenou, and some other chiefs, in the house that we occupied, I immediately put a guard over them, and gave them to understand that they must remain under restraint till not only the kid and the turkeys, but the other things that had been stolen from us, at different times, were restored. They concealed, as well as they could, their feelings on finding themselves prisoners; and having assured me that everything should be restored as I desired, sat down to drink their "kava," seemingly much at their ease. It was not long before an axe and an iron wedge were brought to me. In the meantime some armed natives began to gather behind the house; but on a part of our guard marching against them they dispersed, and I advised the chiefs to give orders that no more should appear. Such orders were accordingly given by them, and they were obeyed. On asking them to go aboard with me to dinner, they readily consented. But some having afterward objected to the King's going, he instantly rose up and declared he would be the first man. Accordingly we came on board. I kept them there till near 4 o'clock, when I conducted them ashore, and soon after the kid and one of the turkey cocks were brought back. The other, they said, should be restored the next morning. I believed this would happen, and released both them and the canoes.

After the chiefs had left us, I walked out with Omai to observe how the people about us fared, for this was the time of their meals. I found that in general they were at short commons. Nor is this to be wondered at, since most of the yams and cther provisions which they brought with them were sold to us; and they never thought of returning to their own habitations while they could find any sort of subsistence in our neighbourhood. Our station was upon an uncultivated point of land, so that there were none

top of the first posts, they fastened others to them, and so continued till each pile was the height of thirty feet or upwards. On the top of one they placed two baked hogs, and on the top of the other a living one; and another they tied by the legs halfway up. It was matter of curiosity to observe with what facility and despatch these two piles were raised. Had our seamen been ordered to execute such a work, they would have sworn that it could not be performed without carpenters; and the carpenters would have called to their aid a dozen different sorts of tools, and have expended at least a hundredweight of nails; and after all it would have employed them as many days as it did these people hours. But seamen, like most other amphibious animals, are always the most helpless on land. After they had completed these two piles, they made several other heaps of yams and bread-fruit on each side of the area, to which were added a turtle and a large quantity of excellent fish. All this, with a piece of cloth, a mat, and some red feathers, was the King's present to me; and he seemed to pique himself on exceeding, as he really did, Feenou's liberality which I experienced at Hapaee.

of the islanders who, properly, resided | within half-a-mile of us. But even at this distance, the multitude of strangers being so great, one might have expected that every house would have been much crowded. It was quite otherwise. The families residing there were as much left to themselves as if there had not been a supernumerary visitor near them. All the strangers lived in little temporary sheds, or under trees and bushes; and the cocoa-trees were stripped of their branches to erect habitations for the chiefs. In this walk we met with about half-a-dozen women in one place at supper. Two of the company, I observed, being fed by the others, on our asking the reason they said "taboo mattee." On further inquiry we found that one of them had two months before washed the dead corpse of a chief, and that on this account she was not to handle any food for five months. The other had performed the same office to the corpse of another person of inferior rank, and was now under the same restriction, but not for so long a time. At another place hard by we saw another woman fed, and we learned that she had assisted in washing the corpse of the above-mentioned chief.

Early the next morning the King came on board to invite me to an entertainment which he proposed to give the same day. He had already been under the barber's hands, his head being all besmeared with red pigment in order to redden his hair, which was naturally of a dark brown colour. After breakfast I attended him to the shore, and we found his people very busy, in two places in the front of our area, fixing in an upright and square position, thus [], four very long posts near two feet from each other. The space between the posts was afterwards filled up with yams, and as they went on filling it, they fastened pieces of sticks across from post to post at the distance of about every four feet, to prevent the posts from separating by the weight of the enclosed yams, and also to get up by. When the yams had reached the

About 1 o'clock they began the "mai," or dances, the first of which was almost a copy of the first that was exhibited at Mareewagee's entertainment. The second was conducted by Captain Furneaux's Toobou, who, as we mentioned, had also danced there; and in this four or five women were introduced, who went through the several parts with as much exactness as the men. Towards the end, the performers divided to leave room for two champions, who exercised their clubs, as described on a former occasion. And in the third dance, which was the last now presented, two more men with their clubs displayed their dexterity. The dances were succeeded by wrestling and boxing, and one man entered the lists with a sort of club made from the stem of a cocoa-leaf, which is firm and heavy, but could find no antagonist to engage

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In order to be present the whole time, I dined ashore. The King sat down with us, but he neither ate nor drank. I found that this was owing to the presence of a female whom, at his desire, I had admitted to the dining party, and who, as we afterwards understood, had superior rank to himself. As soon as this great personage had dined, she stepped up to the King, who put his hands to her feet, and then she retired. He immediately dipped his fingers into a glass of wine, and then received the obeisance of all her followers. This was the single instance we ever observed of his paying this mark of reverence to any person. At the King's desire I ordered some fireworks to be played off in the evening, but unfortunately being damaged, this exhibition did not answer expectation.

CHAPTER VIII.

As no more entertainments were to be expected on either side, and the curiosity of the populace was by this time pretty well satisfied, on the day after Poulaho's "Haiva," most of them left us. We still, however, had thieves about us; and, encouraged by the negligence of our own people, we had continual instances of their depredations. Some of the officers befonging to both ships, who had made an excursion into the interior parts of the island without my leave, and indeed without my knowledge, returned this evening, after an absence of two days. They had taken with them their muskets, with the necessary ammunition, and several small articles of the favourite commodities;

to steal from them in the course of their expedition. This affair was likely to be attended with inconvenient consequences. For our plundered travellers, upon their return, without consulting me, employed Omai to complain to the King of the treatment they had met with. He, not knowing what step I should take, and, from what had already happened, fearing lest I might lay him again under restraint, went off early the next morning. His example was followed by Feenou; so that we had not a chief of any authority remaining in our neighbourhood. I was very much displeased at this, and reprimanded Omai for having presumed to meddle. This reprimand put him upon his metal to bring his friend Feenou back; and he succeeded in the negotiation, having this powerful argument to urge, that he might depend upon my using no violent measures to oblige the natives to restore what had been taken from the gentlemen. Feenou, trusting to this declaration, returned toward the evening; and, encouraged by his reception, Poulaho favoured us with his company the day

after.

Both these chiefs, upon this occasion, very justly observed to me that if any of my people at any time wanted to go into the country, they ought to be acquainted with it; in which case they would send proper people along with them, and then they would be answerable for their safety. And I am convinced from experience that, by taking this very reasonable precaution, a man and his property may be as safe among these islanders as in other parts of the more civilised world. Though I gave myself no trouble about the recovery of the things stolen upon this occasion, most of them, through Feenou's interposition, were recovered, except one musket and a few other articles of inferior value. By this time also we had recovered the turkey cock and most of the tools and other matters that had been stolen from our workmen. We had now recruited the ships with wood and

water; we had finished the repairs of our sails; and had little more to expect from the inhabitants of the produce of their island. However, as an eclipse of the sun was to happen upon the 5th of the next month, I resolved to defer sailing till that time had elapsed, in order to have a chance of observing it. Having therefore some days of leisure before me, a party of us, accompanied by Poulaho, set out early next morning in a boat, for Mooa, the village where he and the other great men usually reside. As we rowed up the inlet, we met with fourteen canoes fishing in company, in one of which was Poulaho's son. In each canoe was a triangular net, extended between two poles, at the lower end of which was a cod1 to receive and secure the fish. They had already caught some fine mullets, and they put about a dozen into our boat. I desired to see their method of fishing, which they readily complied with. A shoal of fish was supposed to be upon one of the banks, which they instantly enclosed in a long net like a seine or set-net. This the fishers, one getting into the water out of each boat, surrounded with the triangular nets in their hands; with which they scooped the fish out of the seine, or caught them as they attempted to leap over it. They showed us the whole process of this operation (which seemed to be a sure one), by throwing in some of the fish they had already caught, for at this time there happened to be none upon the bank that was enclosed.

and near the public one, or "malaee," in which we had been, when we first visited Mooa. This, though pretty large, seemed to be his private habitation, and was situated within a plantation. The King took his seat at one end of the house, and the people who came to visit him sat down, as they arrived, in a semicircle at the other end. The first thing done was to prepare a bowl of "kava,” and to order some yams to be baked for us. While these were getting ready, some of us, accompanied by a few of the King's attendants, and Omai as our interpreter, walked out to take a view of a "fiatooka," or burying-place, which we had observed to be almost close by the house, and was much more extensive, and seemingly of more consequence, than any we had seen at the other islands. We were told that it belonged to the King. It consisted of three pretty large houses, situated upon a rising ground, or rather just by the brink of it, with a small one at some distance, all ranged longitudinally. The middle house of the three first was by much the largest, and placed in a square, twenty-four paces by twentyeight, raised about three feet. The other houses were placed on little mounts raised artificially to the same height. The floors of these houses, as also the tops of the mounts round them, were covered with loose, fine pebbles, and the whole was enclosed by large flat stones of hard coral rock, properly hewn, placed on their edges; one of which stones measured twelve feet in length, two in breadth, and above one in thickness. One of the houses, contrary to what we had seen before, was open on one side; and within it were two rude wooden busts of men, one near the entrance and the other farther in. On inquiring of the natives who had followed us to the ground, but durst not enter here, what these images were intended for, they made us as sensible as we could wish, that they were merely memorials of some chiefs who had been buried there, and not the representations of any deity. Such monuments,

Leaving the prince and his fishing party, we proceeded to the bottom of the bay, and landed where we had done before on our fruitless errand to see Mareewagee. As soon as we got on shore, the King desired Omai to tell me that I need be under no apprehensions about the boat or anything in her, for not a single article would be touched by any one; and we afterward found this to be the case. We were immediately conducted to one of Poulaho's houses not far off,

1 A bag, or pocket.