used first, and the smooth side afterwards. They generally beat alternately. Early in the morning, when the air is calm and still, the beating of the gnatoo at all the plantations about has a very pleasing effect, some sounds being near at hand and others almost lost by the distance; some a little more acute, others more grave, and all with remarkable regularity, produce a musical variety that is very agreeable, and not a little heightened by the singing of the birds and the cheerful influence of the scene. When one hand is fatigued the mallet is dexterously transferred to the other, without occasioning the smallest sensible delay. In the course of about half an hour it is brought to a sufficient degree of thinness, being so much spread laterally as to be now nearly square when unfolded: for it must be observed that they double it several times during the process, by which means it spreads more equally, and is prevented from breaking. The bark thus far prepared is called fetage, and is mostly put aside till they have a sufficient quantity to go on at a future time with a second part of the operation, which is called cogaga, or printing with coca. When this is to be done, a number employ themselves in gathering the berries of the toe, the pulp of which serves for paste; but the mucilaginous substance of the mahoá root is sometimes substituted for it.

At the same time others are busy scraping off the soft bark of the coca tree and the tooi-tooi tree, either of which when wrung out, without water, yields a reddish brown juice, to be used as a dye. The cobéchi, or stamp, is formed of the dried leaves of the paoongo sewed together, so as to be of a sufficient size, and afterwards embroidered, according to various devices, with the wiry fibre of the cocoa-nut husk. They are generally about two feet long and a foot and a half broad. They are tied on to the convex side of half cylinders of wood, usually about six or eight feet long, to admit two or three similar operations to go on at the same time. The stamp being thus fixed, with the embroidered side uppermost, a piece of the prepared bark is laid on it, and smeared over with a folded piece of gnatoo dipped in one of the reddish brown liquids before-mentioned, so that the whole surface of the prepared bark becomes stained, but particularly those parts raised by the design in the stamp. Another piece of gnatoo is now laid on it, but not quite so broad, which adheres by virtue of the mucilaginous quality in the dye, and this in like manner is smeared over, then a third in the same way; and the substance is now three layers in thickOthers are then added to increase it in length and breadth, by pasting the edges of

ness.

these over the first, but not so as there shall be in any place more than three folds, which is easily managed, as the margin of one layer falls short of the margin of the one under it. During the whole process each layer is stamped separately, so that the pattern may be said to exist in the very substance of the gnatoo; and when one portion is thus printed to the size of the cobéchi, the material being moved farther on, the next portion, either in length or breadth, becomes stamped, the pattern beginning close to where the other ended. Thus they go on printing and enlarging it to about six feet in breadth, and generally about forty or fifty yards in length. It is then carefully folded up and baked under ground, which causes the dye to become somewhat darker and more firmly fixed in the fibre besides which, it deprives it of a peculiar smoky smell which belongs to the coca. When it has been thus exposed to heat for a few hours, it is spread out on a grass plat, or on the sand of the sea-shore, and the finishing operation of toogi hea commences, or staining it in certain places with the juice of the hea, which constitutes a brilliant red varnish. This is done in straight lines, along those places where the edges of the printed portions join each other, and serves to conceal the little irregularities there; also in sundry other places, in the form

of round spots about an inch and a quarter in diameter. After this the gnatoo is exposed one night to the dew, and the next day being dried in the sun, it is packed up in bales, to be used when required. When gnatoo is not printed or stained, it is called tapa.

Mr. Mariner's work contains many other particulars of considerable interest respecting the habits of the people, their kind treatment of the weaker sex, the modesty of the women, their care of their children, &c. to detail which would too much interrupt the narrative of this voyage. I must therefore here take leave of my worthy friends in Tonga, and resume my journal.

CHAPTER II.

CCCURRENCES FROM TONGA TO THE ISLAND OF ROTHUMA,

AND THENCE TO TUCOPIA AND MANNICOLO.

At

28th August 1827.-Fine trade weather. 9 A.M., being near the situation assigned to the island of Onooafow, or Probey Island of the Pandora on Arrowsmith's chart, on which chart the track of the Pandora in 1791 is laid down, I bore away for it to N.W.

At noon our latitude observed was 16° 12′ S., and longitude by main of three eight-day chronometers 175° 42′ W. This situation would place the ship thirteen miles to the south-eastward of Onooafow, I therefore steered a north-west course for it nineteen and a-half miles, which would place us in the latitude of the island, and then steered west seventeen miles; but not seeing any thing of land I bore away. The situation assigned to the above island in Arrowsmith's chart, as laid down by the Pandora, is 15° 59′ S., and longitude 175° 52′ W.; and that allotted to it in Malham's Naval Gazetteer is 15° 46° S., and longitude 175° 15′ W. If such an island does exist, the latter situation will most likely be found cor