Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

should he chance to miss a spear, his tu-telar god would catch it or turn it aside, · rather than allow him to be hurt.

P. 185. The author here speaks of the use of Ava, (or as the Tonga people call it, Cava), which he never saw employed but as a medicine to prevent corpulency, ardent spirits being adopted as a luxury instead of it. Mr. Mariner, when he was at Wahoo, saw it drunk twice as a luxury, and was told that several of the old men still preferred it to spirits. It must be remembered that this was four years before Mr. Campbell's time.

P. 188. It is here remarked that the women are much disposed to break the taboo the author says, "I have known them eat of the forbidden delicacies of pork and shark's flesh. What would be the consequence of a discovery I know not." Mr. Mariner also witnessed several instances of this. The Sandwich-island women have so many severe and impolitic restrictions in regard to food, that it would be unreasonable perhaps to expect that they

should on all secure occasions be very faithfully strict: the punishment for such of fences, however, is death. It is very well worth while to compare the state of the women in the Sandwich islands with that of the women of Tonga: it will afford an interesting proof how much a line of conduct, influenced by liberality and respect towards females, is productive of morality.

P. 206—7. The author here mentions a custom of the queen, that of preserving the bones of her father, wrapt up carefully in a piece of cloth, "because she loved her father so dearly." Mr. Mariner saw these bones, and on enquiry, found it was not merely a custom of the queen, but a common practice among them.

P. 209. In regard to the question, whether the natives of the Sandwich islands are cannibals, Mr. Mariner is disposed to believe that they are not: those natives who were with him at Tonga always strongly denied the charge.

These several statements, it is hoped,

the reader will not think tedious: they serve as very fair proofs of the accuracy with which Mr. Mariner noticed what he saw, and the fidelity of his memory in relating it. Some of these statements, as before mentioned, are inserted in the body of the present work, and were printed off before Mr. Campbell's book was published to these may be added, the knowledge of the Sandwich islanders in the use of emetics and cathartics, as related in the second volume of this work, p. 243, and in Mr. Campbell's book, p. 174; and it is worth notice, that from the difference of the ingredients mentioned in the two accounts, it appears they are acquainted with more than one kind of each medicine. In regard to what Mr. Mariner relates concerning the bones of Captain Cook, (see Vol. II. p. 66), it is rather extraordinary that Mr. Campbell makes no mention of any thing of the kind: it is possible the custom was dropped before his time, under the idea of giving offence to the English people. Mr. Mariner has

no doubt of the fact, from the positive manner in which it was related to him by Hairbottle, and afterwards by those Sandwich-island natives that were with him at Tonga: perhaps Mr. Campbell can throw some light upon the subject.

Having thus far sketched an outline of Mr. Mariner's education and early habits, and given some instances in proof of his qualifications as a narrator, it remains to furnish a short account of the advantageous opportunities which fell in his way. In the first place, it must be stated, that he was by far the best educated of all those who survived the capture of the Port au Prince. From the first moment the king of the Tonga islands saw him, he conceived a strong prejudice in his favour, and gave orders to those who had the management of the conspiracy, that if they should find it necessary to make a great slaughter, they were nevertheless to preserve his life;—this was the commencement of a friendship which lasted till the king's death: he gave him a residence

[ocr errors]

within his own fencing; appointed one of his wives, a very sensible and well informed woman, to be his adopted mother, that she might employ her time in instructing him in the language and exact customs of the country: he admitted him to all his conferences with his chiefs, priests, and matabooles: at length he adopted him as his own son, and gave him the name of a favourite son, (Togi Oocumméa), who had died a few years before wherever the king went Mr. Mariner might accompany him if he chose: in all the battles fought by the king, Mr. Mariner was present. After his death, his son, who succeeded, equally extended to him his patronage and protection, or rather, Mr. Mariner might be called his dearest brother, his constant, intimate, and confidential friend; and so sorry was the young king to part with him, that he actually proposed to give up his dominions to his uncle, and accompany Mr. Mariner to England,—a sufficient proof that the latter possessed those qualities of

« ForrigeFortsæt »