for here and there is found one which produces the most alarming and sometimes the most fatal effects. As there is no mark by which these poisonous ones may be known, it is dangerous to eat of them, unless they be procured in the rocky bay of this plantation, where, it is said, are never found any poisonous. The chiefs, however, seldom touch them, unless perhaps there is a scarcity of other fish. The time when they are best, and in the greatest plenty, is in the latter end of the month of July, when the natives flock here

So let it be ;-away with thought!

To catch our moments as they fly, Is wisdom that the foe has taught ;Be gay-to-morrow we may die! Yes, let us wear the coola gay,

And round our waists the gnatoo twine,
And chaplets wreath of jiale,

And hooni necklaces that shine
In milky whiteness on our skins,
Sun-tinted with a golden brown,-
And now, behold the feast begins,
And jocund shouts the music drown.
To morrow we return ;-to night
We give our hearts to happiness;
And gentle words and glances bright
Are ours, as crowding round us press
Our eager lovers, begging sore,

With many a honied word and sigh,
For nosegays from our flowery store,
Whilst thus the merry flatterers cry :-
"Think you our maidens from Licoo
Are fairer than all maids beside?
Think you their necks of auburn hue
The paleness of the hooni chide?
Think you that fragrance breathes around them,
Sweet as the fragrance of Vyboo?

Oh! surely some new charm has bound them,
We too must visit their Licoo!"

for the purpose of catching them; and after having procured a quantity, they take them home to their families, in baskets made of plaited leaves of the cocoa-nut tree. *

Mahe Boogoo, the chief to whom this valuable piece of ground belonged, having made a present of it to the king, and Mr Mariner, now that the war was ended, having nothing to employ himself in, he begged Finow to give it up to him, that he might amuse himself by seeing it properly cultivated. To this the king, after a little hesitation, consented; and Mr Mariner requested the farther favour, that he might be exempt from all taxes, that no chief might despoil his plantation, under pretext of levying any species of contribution; and this exemption, he observed, would be no more than what was consistent with the Tonga custom, which exacts no contribution from foreigners, unless indeed it be upon some sacred occasion, as the ceremony of ináchi, &c. To this also the king gave his assent, upon mutual agreement, that the whole plantation was to be considered at Finow's service, as being the father and protector of Mr Mariner, but that he would not take any thing nor trespass upon it in any way, without Mr Mariner's consent, who was to regulate every thing regarding it just as he pleased, and was henceforth to consider it as his property, with all the persons who worked on

The

The symptoms produced by eating this fish when poisonous, are headach, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea, with violent pains in the bowels, to which death generally succeeds in the course of four or five hours. only remedy they use (which very seldom succeeds) is to cause the patient drink abundantly of water, or, what is considered still better, the milk of young cocoa-nuts.

it, consisting of thirteen men and eight women. To these the king gave orders, that they should pay the same attention and respect to Mr Mariner as to himself or their former chief. He moreover informed the matooa, or overseer, that he had invested Mr Mariner with full power to despatch any of them with the club that failed in their duty, or neglected in any respect to show proper attention to their new master. To this, in the usual form, they all returned thanks to the king for the new chief he had been pleased to appoint over them, and expressed their hopes that they should never deserve punishment by any want of respect towards the " stranger chief.' As soon as Mr Mariner entered upon his new possessions, he gave orders to get ready a large bale of gnatoo, which he sent to Finow as a present.

About this time Mr Mariner was nearly devour→ ed by a shark. One of his servants who worked upon the plantation, had laid pots about four feet deep in the water, for the purpose of catching cray-fish, and Mr Mariner one afternoon dived down to examine them, in hopes that he should be able to fulfil a promise he had made to Toobó mo Laképa, the Prince's favourite wife (whose situation required a few indulgences), to bring her some of this sort of fish. The spot was just upon the perpendicular declivity of a shelf of rocks. Having come up to take breath, with the intention of going down a second time, he saw with terror the dorsal fin of a shark gliding swiftly along the surface of the water directly towards him. He instantly clambered upon the reef and sprung on one side. In a moment after, the deadly enemy coming with impetuosity, rushed upon the shelf

(in a foot and a half water) within a yard of him, and had some difficulty to get off again. As soon as he had recovered from his consternation, he quickly got off the reef, making very strong resolutions to avoid for the future a personal search after cray-fish in such situations.

About a month after this a canoe came from one of the neighbouring small islands, bringing intelligence that a large dead spermaceti whale had drifted on a reef, off Vavaoo. Immediately all the chiefs ordered their canoes to be launched, that they might witness this unusual sight; and Mr Mariner went along with them. They found the whale in a very bad state, half decayed, and sending forth a disagreeable odour. This however they did not much regard; for although some of the lower orders managed to make a meal of it, their chief object was the teeth, of which they make a kind of necklace, by cutting it into smaller pieces, each preserving the shape of a whale's tooth, from an inch to four inches long, having a hole in the broadest part. Through this hole they are closely strung, and put round the neck; the largest being in front, and the others decreasing in size on each side, up to the back of the neck; so that, when drawn close, their pointed extremities spread out, and form a very agreeable ornament upon their brown skins, which is much prized by them, on account of its scarcity as well as beauty. This has given rise to the accounts which voyagers have given that they wear teeth round their necks, whereas they are only forms of teeth cut out of the tooth of the whale; and it is astonishing with what neatness they do this, making as little waste as it would be possible to do with much better in

strnments than what they possess-nothing, indeed, but a common shaped European chisel, or a piece of a saw, or in defect of these, a flattened nail rendered sharp. Before they procured iron from European ships, they made use of a sharp stone. This kind of ivory they also use to inlay their clubs with, as well as their wooden pillows, (see p. 122.), the high price set upon these ornaments will be exemplified in the following account, which Finow, on this occasion, gave to Mr Mariner.

A short time after the revolt at Tonga, when Finow first became sovereign of Hapai and Vavaoo, news was brought him of a large dead whale being drifted on a reef, off a small island, inhabited only by one man and his wife, who had the cultivation of a small plantation there. Finow immediately sailed for the place, and finding the teeth taking from the whale, questioned the man about them, who thereupon went to his house, and taking down a basket from the roof presented it to him, but in it were only two teeth. The man protested that he put them all there, and knew nothing more about them; and taxing his wife with having concealed them, she acknowledged that she had secreted one, and brought it to him, from a place in which no others were found; but this she assured him was all she had taken. The man defended his innocence on the plea that the teeth would be of no use to him; for being poor, he could not sell them for any thing else, since every chief who could afford to give their value would question his right to them, and take them from him; and for the