expedients they make use of without success, till at last they find the watchmen asleep; they then go gently up to them, and lifting them off from the basket, which for security they have placed in their middle, they go off with their prize. The others awake and dance, but seem to show little regret for their loss, or indeed hardly to miss the basket at all.

9th. We resolved to sail as soon as the people left off bringing provisions, which about noon they did, and we again launched out into the ocean in search of what chance and Tupia might direct us to.

13th. Many albecores have been about the ship all this evening. Tupia took one, and had not his rod broken, would probably have taken many. He used an Indian fish-hook made of mother-of-pearl, so that it served at the same time for hook and bait.

At noon to-day, high land in sight, which proves to be an island which Tupia calls Oheteroa.

14th. The island of Oheteroa was to all appearance more barren than anything we have seen in these seas, the chief produce seeming to be etoa (from the wood of which the people make their weapons); indeed, everywhere along shore where we saw plantations, the trees were of this kind. It is without a reef, and the ground in the bay we were in was so foul and coralline, that although a ship might come almost close to the shore, she could not possibly anchor.

The people seemed strong, lusty, and well made, but were rather browner than those we have left behind; they were not tattowed like them, but had instead black marks about as broad as my hand under their armpits, the sides of which marks were deeply indented. They had also smaller circles round their arms and legs. Their dress

was indeed most singular, as well as the cloth of which it was made. It consisted of the same materials as the inhabitants of the other islands make use of, and was generally dyed of a very bright deep yellow; upon this was spread in some cases a composition, either red or of a dark lead colour, which covered it like oil colour or varnish. Upon

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this again were painted stripes in many different patterns with infinite regularity, much in the same way as lustring silks in England, all the straight lines upon them being drawn with such accuracy that we were almost in doubt whether or not they

were stamped on with some kind of press. The red cloth was painted in this manner with black, the lead-coloured with white. Of this cloth, generally the lead-coloured, they had on a short jacket that reached about down to their knees, and made of one piece, with a hole through which they put their heads, the sides of which hole differed from anything I have seen, being stitched with long stitches. This was tied round their bodies by a piece of yellow cloth which passed behind their necks and came across the breasts in two broad stripes crossing each other; it was then collected round the waist in the form of a belt, under which was another of the red cloth, so that the whole made a very gay and warlike appearance. Some had on their heads caps, as described above, of the tails of tropic birds, but these did not become them so well as a piece of white or lead-coloured cloth, which most of them had wound on their heads like a small turban.

Their arms consisted of long lances made of the etoa, or hard wood, well polished and sharpened at one end; of these some were nearly twenty feet long, and scarcely as thick as three fingers; they had also clubs or pikes of the same wood about seven feet long, well polished, and sharpened How expert they may tell, but the weapons

at one end into a broad point. be in the use of these we cannot themselves seem intended more for show than use, as the lance was not pointed with stings of sting-rays, and their clubs or pikes, which must do more execution by their weight than their sharpness, were not more than half as heavy as the smallest I have seen in the other islands. Defensive weapons I saw none; they, however, guarded

themselves against such weapons as their own by mats folded and laid upon their breasts under their clothes.

Of the few things we saw among the people, every one was ornamented in a manner infinitely superior to anything we had hitherto seen. Their cloth was of a better colour, as well as nicely painted; their clubs were better cut and polished; the canoe which we saw, though very small and narrow, was nevertheless very highly carved and ornamented. One thing particularly in her seemed to be calculated rather as an ornament for something that was never intended to go into the water, and that was two lines of small white feathers placed on the outside of the canoe, and which were, when we saw them, thoroughly wet with the water.

We have now seen seventeen islands in these seas, and have landed on five of the most important; of these the language, manners, and customs agreed most exactly. I should therefore be tempted to conclude that those islands which we have not seen do not differ materially at least from the others. The account I shall give of them is taken chiefly from Otahite, where I was well acquainted with their policy, as I found them to be a people so free from deceit that I trusted myself among them almost as freely as I could do in my own country, sleeping continually in their houses in the woods without so much as a single companion. Whether or not I am right in judging their manners and customs to be general among these seas, any one who gives himself the trouble of reading this journal through can judge as well as I myself.

CHAPTER VII

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS

Description of the people-Tattowing-Cleanliness-Clothing-Ornaments and head-dress-Houses-Food-Produce of the sea-Fruits-Animals -Cooking-Mahai-making-Drinking salt-water-Meals-Women eat apart from the men-Pastimes-Music-Attachment to old customsMaking of cloth from bark-Dyes and dyeing-Mats--Manufacture of fishing-nets—Fish-hooks-Carpentry, etc.—Boats and boat-building— Fighting, fishing, and travelling ivahahs-Instability of the boatsPaddles, sails, and ornaments - Pahies - Predicting the weatherAstronomy-Measurement of time and space-Language-Its resemblance to other languages-Diseases-Medicine and surgery-Funeral ceremonies -Disposal of the dead-Religion-Origin of mankind-Gods-PriestsMarriage Marais-Bird-gods-Government-Ranks-Army and battles -Justice.

ALL the islands I have seen are very populous along the whole length of the coast, where are generally large flats covered with a great many bread-fruit and cocoanut trees. There are houses scarcely fifty yards apart, with their little plantations of plantains, the trees from which they make their cloth, etc. But the inland parts are totally uninhabited, except in the valleys, where there are rivers, and even there there are but a small proportion of people in comparison with the numbers who live upon the flats.

These people are of the larger size of Europeans, all very well made, and some handsome, both men and women; the only bad feature they have is their noses, which are in general flat, but to balance this their teeth are almost without exception even and white to perfection, and the eyes of the women especially are full of expression and fire. In colour they differ very much; those of inferior rank who

are obliged in the exercise of their profession, fishing especially, to be much exposed to the sun and air, are of a dark brown, while those of superior rank, who spend most of their time in their houses under shelter, are seldom browner (the women particularly) than that kind of brunette which many in Europe prefer to the finest red and white. Complexion, indeed, they seldom have, though some I have seen show a blush very manifestly; this is perhaps owing to the thickness of their skin, but that fault is in my opinion well compensated by their infinite smoothness, much superior to anything I have met with in Europe.

The men, as I have before said, are rather large. I have measured one 6 feet 3 inches. The superior women are also as tall as Europeans, but the inferior sort are generally small. Their hair is almost universally black and rather coarse, this the women wear always cropped short round their ears; the men, on the other hand, wear it in many various ways, sometimes cropping it short, sometimes allowing it to grow very long, and tying it at the top of their heads or letting it hang loose on their shoulders, etc. Their beards they all wear in many different fashions, always, however, plucking out a large part of them and keeping what is left very clean and neat. Both sexes eradicate every hair from under their armpits, and they looked upon it as a great mark of uncleanliness in us that Iwe did not do the same.

During our stay in these islands I saw some, not more than five or six, who were a total exception to all I have said above. They were whiter even than we, but of a dead colour, like that of the nose of a white horse; their eyes, hair, eyebrows, and beards were also white; they were universally short-sighted, and always looked unwholesome, the skin scurfy and scaly, and the eye often full of rheum. As no two of them had any connection with one another, I conclude that the difference of colour, etc., was totally accidental, and did not at all run in families.

So much for their persons. I shall now mention their methods of painting their bodies, or tattow as it is called in