aJoust quarter-deck intended to drop a bead into a canoe for 3'
little boy about fix years old ; by accident it miffed the boat
and fell into the fea ; but the child immediately leaped
overboard, and diving after it brought it up again. To
reward his performance we dropped fome more beads' to
him, which fo tempted a number of men and women, that
they amufed us with amazing feats of agility in the water,
and not only fetched up feveral beads fcattered at once, but
likewife large nails, which, on account of their weight,
defcended quickly to a confiderable depth. Some of them-
continued a long while under water, and the velocity with-
which we faw them go down, the water being perfeftly
clear, was very furprifing. The frequent ablutions of
thefe people, already mentioned in Captain Cook’s former
voyage, feem to make fwimming familiar to them from
their earlieft childhood ; and indeed their eafy pofition in
the water, and the pliancy of their limbs, gave us reafon.
to look on them almoft as amphibious creatures. They
continued this fport, and their other occupations about us,
till fun-fet, when they all withdrew by degrees to the
fhore.
In the evening the captains with their company returned
on board, without having feen the king, who, perhaps
miftrufting their intentions, had fent word, that he intended
to vifit us the next day. They had taken a walk along
the fhore to the eaftward, attended by a great croud of
the
the natives, who infifted on carrying them oft their Ihould- aucvsi
ers over a fine brook. After they had paffed it, the natives
left them, and they proceeded accompanied by one man,
who guided them to an uncultivated projedting point,
where different kinds of plants grew in wild luxuriance
among feveral forts of fhrubs. On coming out of the
fhrubbery they faw a building of ftones, in form of the
fruftum of a pyramid; the bafe might meafure about
twenty yards in front, and the whole confided of feveral
terraces or Iteps above each other, which were ruinous and
overgrown with graffes and fhrubs, efpeeially on the back
or inland part. This the native faid was a burying-place
and place of worfhip, jnarjii, and diflinguifhed it by the
name of no-4 heatua, the burying-place of Aheatua, the
prefent king of Tiarrobop. Around it were placed perpendicularly,
or nearly fo, fifteen {lender pieces of wood, fome
about eighteen feet long, in which fix or eight diminutive
human figures of a rude unnatural fhape were carved,
Handing above each other, male or female promifeuoufly,
yet fo that the uppermoft was always a male. All thefe
figures faced the fea, and perfectly refembled fome which
.are carved on the Herns of their canoes, and which they
call e-tee. Beyond the morai they faw a kind of thatch
ereHed on four pofls, before which a lattice of flicks was
placed in the ground, hung with bananas and cocoa-nuts
no ƒ Eatua, “ for the Divinity.” They fat down to reft them-
M m 2 felves