1769. June.

alfo places of worship, is MORAI. We were foon struck with the fight of an enormous pile, which, we were told, was the Morai of Oamo and Oberea, and the principal piece of Indian architecture in the inland. It was a pile of ftone work, raised pyramidically upon an oblong bafe, or fquare, two hundred and fixty-feven feet long, and eighty-feven wide. It was built like the fmall pyramidal mounts upon which we fometimes fix the pillar of a fun-dial, where each fide is a flight of fteps; the steps, however, at the fides were broader than those at the ends, fo that it terminated not in a fquare of the fame figure with the bafe, but in a ridge, like the roof of a houfe; there were eleven of thefe fteps, each of which was four feet high, so that the height of the pile was forty-four feet; each step was formed of one courfe of white coral stone, which was neatly fquared and polished; the rest of the mafs, for there was no hollow within, confifted of round pebbles, which, from the regularity of their figure, feemed to have been wrought. Some of the coral ftones were very large; we measured one of them, and found it three feet and an half by two feet and an half. The foundation was of rock ftones, which were alfo fquared, and one of them measured four feet feven inches by two feet four. Such a ftructure, raised without the affiftance of iron tools to fhape the ftones, or mortar to join them, struck us with astonishment: it seemed to be as compact and firm as it could have been made by any workman in Europe, except that the steps, which range along its greatest length, are not perfectly ftraight, but fink in a kind of hollow in the middle, fo that the whole furface, from end to end, is not a right line, but a curve. The quarry-ftones, as we faw no quarry in the neighbourhood, must have been brought from a confiderable distance, as there is no method of conveyance here but by the hand; the coral muft alfo have been fished for from under the water, where, though it may be found in plenty, it lies at a confiderable depth, never less than three feet. Both the rock stone and the coral could be fquared only by tools made of the fame fubftance, which must have been a work of incredible labour; but the polishing was more easily effected by means of the fharp coral fand, which is found every where

upon

upon the fea-fhore in great abundance. In the middle of the top ftood the image of a bird, carved in wood; and near it lay the broken one of a fifh, carved in ftone. The whole of this pyramid made part of one fide of a fpacious area or fquare, nearly of equal fides, being three hundred and fixty feet by three hundred and fifty-four, which was walled in with ftone, and paved with flat stones in its whole extent; though there were growing in it, notwithstanding the pavement, feveral of the trees which they call Etoa, and plantains. About an hundred yards to the weft of this building, was another paved area or court, in which were several small stages raised on wooden pillars, about feven feet high, which are called by the Indians Ewattas, and feem to be a kind of altars, as upon these are placed provifions of all kinds, as offerings to the gods; we have fince feen whole hogs placed upon them, and we found here the fkulls of above fifty, befides the fkulls of a great number of dogs.

The principal object of ambition among these people is to have a magnificent Morai, and this was a ftriking memorial of the rank and power of Oberea. It has been remarked, that we did not find her invested with the fame authority that the exereifed when the Dolphin was at this place, and we now learnt the reafon of it. Our way from her house to the Morai lay along the fea fide, and we obferved every where under our feet a great number of human bones, chiefly ribs and vertebræ. Upon enquiring into the caufe of fo fingular an appearance, we were told, that in the then last month of Owarahew, which answered to our December, 1968, about four or five months before our arrival, the people of Tiarrabou, the S. E. peninfula which we had juft vifited, made a defcent at this place, and killed a great number of the people, whose bones were those that we faw upon the fhore: that, upon this occafion, Oberea, and Qamo, who then adminiftered the government for his fon, had fled to the mountains; and that the conquerors burnt all the houses, which were very large, and carried away the hogs and what other animals they found. We learnt alfo, that the turkey and goofe, which we had feen when we were with Mathiabo, the ftealer of cloaks,

C 4

were

June.

1769. were among the spoils; this accounted for their being found among people with whom the Dolphin had little or no communication; and upon mentioning the jawbones, which we had feen hanging from a board in a long house, we were told, that they also had been carried away as trophies, the people here carrying away the jaw-bones of their enemies, as the Indians of North America do the fcalps.

July.

After having thus gratified our curiofity, we returned to our quarters, where we paffed the night in perfect fecurity and quiet. By the next evening we arrived at Atahourou, the refidence of our friend Tootahah, where, the last time we passed the night under his protection, we had been obliged to leave the best part of our clothes behind us. This adventure, however, feemed now to be forgotten on both fides. Our friends received us with great pleasure, and gave us a good fupper and a good lodging, where we fuffered neither lofs or disturbance.

The next day, Saturday, July the ift, we got back Saturday 1. to our fort at Matavia, having found the circuit of the ifland, including both peninfulas, to be about thirty leagues. Upon our complaining of the want of breadfruit, we were told, that the produce of the last season: was nearly exhausted; and that what was seen sprouting upon the trees, would not be fit to use in less than three months; this accounted for our having been able to procure fo little of it in our route.

While the bread-fruit is ripening upon the flats, the inhabitants are supplied in some measure from the trees which they have planted upon the hills to preferve a fucceffion; but the quantity is not fufficient to prevent scarcity: they live therefore upon the four paste which they call Mahie, upon wild plantains, and ahee nuts, which at this time are in perfection. How it happened that the Dolphin, which was here at this. feafon, found fuch plenty of bread-fruit upon the trees, I cannot tell, except the season in which they ripen varies.

At our return, our Indian friends crowded about us, and none of them came empty-handed. Though I had determined to restore the canoes which had been

detained

detained to their owners, it had not yet been done; but 1769. I now released them as they were applied for. Upon July. this occafion I could not but remark, with concern, that these people were capable of practising petty frauds against each other, with a deliberate dishonesty, which gave me a much worse opinion of them than I had ever entertained from the robberies they committed under the strong temptation to which a fudden opportunity of enriching themselves with the ineftimable metal and manufactures of Europe expofed them.

Among others who applied to me for the release of a canoe, was one POTATTOW, a man of fome confequence, well known to us all. I confented, fuppofing the veffel to be his own, or that he applied on the behalf of a friend: he went immediately to the beach, and took poffeffion of one of the boats, which, with the affiftance of his people, he began to carry off. Upon this, however, it was eagerly claimed by the right owners, who, fupported by the other Indians, clamorously reproached him for invading their property, and prepared to take the canoe from him by force. Upon this he defired to be heard, and told them, that the canoe did, indeed, once belong to those who claimed it; but that I, having seized it as a forfeit, had fold it to him for a pig. This filenced the clamour, the owners, knowing that from my power there was no appeal, acquiefced; and Potattow would have carried off his prize, if the difpute had not fortunately been overheard by fome of our people, who reported it to me. I gave orders immediately that the Indians should be undeceived; upon which the right owners took poffeffion of their canoe, and Potattow was fo confcious of his guilt, that neither he nor his wife, who was privy to his knavery, could look us in the face for fome time afterwards,

CHAP.

1769. July.

CHA P. III.

Mond. 3.

An Expedition of Mr. Banks to trace the River: Marks of Jubterraneous Fire: Preparations for leaving the Ifland: An Account of Tupia.

Ο

N the 3d, Mr. Banks fet out early in the morn-" ing, with fome Indian Guides, to trace our River up the valley from which it iffues, and examine how far its banks were inhabited. For about fix miles they met with houfes, not far diftant from each other, on each fide of the river, and the valley was every where about four hundred yards wide from the foot of the hill on one fide, to the foot of that on the other; but they were now fhewn a houfe, which they were told was the laft that they would fee. When they came up to it, the mafter of it offered them refreshments of cocoa nuts and other fruit, of which they accepted; after a fhort ftay, they walked forward for a confiderable time; in bad way it is not eafy to compute distances, but they imagined that they had walked about fix miles farther, following the courfe of the river, when they frequently paffed under vaults, formed by fragments of the rock, in which they were told people who were benighted frequently paffed the night. Soon after they found the river banked by fteep rocks, from which a cascade falling with great violence, form-' ed a pool, so steep, that the Indians faid they could' not pass it. They feemed, indeed, not much to be acquainted with the valley beyond this place, their bufinefs lying chiefly upon the declivity of the rocks on each fide, and the plains which extended on their fummits, where they found plenty of wild plantain, which they called Vae. The way up thefe rocks from the banks of the river was in every refpect dreadful; the fides were nearly perpendicular, and in fome places one hundred feet high; they were alfo rendered exceedingly flippery by the water of innumerable fprings which iffued from the fiffures on the furface; yet up these precipices a way was to be traced by a fucceffion of long pieces of, the bark of the Hibiscus tiliaceus, which ferved as a rope for the climber to take

hold