nus, of which we had no opportunity to see either the flowers or fruit: They have other matts, or, as they call them, moeas, to sit or to sleep upon, which are formed of a great variety of rushes and grass, and which they make, as they do every thing else that is plaited, with amazing facility and dispatch.

They are also very dexterous in making basket and wicker-work; their baskets are of a thousand different patterns, many of them exceedingly neat; and the making them is an art that every one practises, both men and women; they make occasional baskets and panniers of the cocoa-nut leaf in a few minutes, and the women who visited us early in a morning used to send, as soon as the sun was high, for a few of the leaves, of which they made little bonnets to shade their faces, at so small an expence of time and trouble, that, when the sun was again low in the evening, they used to throw them away. These bonnets, however, did not cover the head, but consisted only of a band that went round it, and a shade that projected from the forehead.

Of the bark of the poerou they make ropes and lines, from the thickness of an inch to the size of a small packthread: With these they make nets for fishing. Of the fibres of the cocoa-nut they make thread for fastening together the several parts of their canoes and belts, either round or flat, twisted or plaited; and of the bark of the erowa, a kind of nettle which grows in the mountains, and is therefore rather scarce, they make the best fishing lines in the world; with these they hold the strongest and most active fish, such as bonetas and albicores, which would snap our strongest silk lines in a minute, though they are twice as thick.

They make also a kind of seine, of a coarse broad grass, the blades of which are like flags; these they twist and tie together in a loose manner, till the net, which is about as wide, as a large sack, is from sixty to eighty fathoms long; this they haul in shoal smooth water, and its own weight keeps it so close to the ground, that scarcely a single fish

can escape.

. In every expedient, indeed, for taking fish, they are exceedingly ingenious; they make harpoons of cane, and point them with hard wood, which, in their hands, strike fish more effectually than those which are headed with iron can do in ours, setting aside the advantage of ours being

fastened

fastened to a line, so that the fish is secured if the hook takes place, though it does not mortally wound him.

Of fish-hooks they have two sorts, admirably adapted in their construction as well to the purpose they are to answer, as to the materials of which they are made. One of these, which they call wittee wittee, is used for towing. The shank is made of mother-of-pearl, the most glossy that can be got; the inside, which is naturally the brightest, is put behind. To these hooks a tuft of white dog's or hog's hair is fixed, so as somewhat to resemble the tail of a fish; these implements, therefore, are both hook and bait, and are used with a rod of bamboo, and line of erowa. The fisher, to secure his success, watches the flight of the birds which constantly attend the bonetas when they swim in shoals, by which he directs his canoe, and when he has the advantage of these guides, he seldom returns without a prize.

The other kind of hook is also made of mother-of-pearl, or some other hard shell: They cannot make them bearded like our hooks; but, to effect the same purpose, they make the point turn inwards. These are made of all sizes, and used to catch various kinds of fish with great success. The manner of making them is very simple, and every fisherman is his own artificer: The shell is first cut into square pieces by the edge of another shell, and wrought into a form corresponding with the outline of the hook, by pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform the office of a file; a hole is then bored in the middle; the drill being no other than the first stone they pick up that has a sharp corner; this they fix into the end of a piece of bamboo, and turn it between the hands like a chocolate-mill; when the shell is perforated, and the hole sufficiently wide, a small file of coral is introduced, by the application of which the hook is in a short time completed, few costing the artificer more time than a quarter of an hour.

Of their masonry, carving, and architecture, the reader has already formed some idea from the account that has been given of the morais, or repositories of the dead: The other most important article of building and carving is their boats; and, perhaps, to fabricate one of their principal ves sels with their tools, is as great a work as to build a British man-of-war with ours.

They have an adze of stone; a chissel, or gouge, of bone, generally that of a man's arm between the wrist and elbow ; a rasp

a rasp of coral; and the skin of a sting-ray, with coral sand, as a file or polisher.

This is a complete catalogue of their tools, and with these they build houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, carve, and polish timber.

The stone which makes the blade of their adzes is a kind of basaltes, of a blackish or grey colour, not very hard, but of considerable toughness: They are formed of different sizes; some, that are intended for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are used for carving, not more than so many ounces; but it is necessary to sharpen both almost every minute; for which purpose, a stone and a cocoa-nut shell full of water are always at hand.

Their greatest exploit, to which these tools are less equal than to any other, is felling a tree: This requires many hands, and the constant labour of several days. When it is down, they split it, with the grain, into planks from three to four inches thick, the whole length and breadth of the tree, many of which are eight feet in the girt, and forty to the branches, and nearly of the same thickness throughout. The tree generally used, is, in their language, called avie, the stem of which is tall and straight; though some of the smaller boats are made of the bread-fruit tree, which is a light spongy wood, and easily wrought. They smooth the plank very expeditiously and dexterously with their adzes, and can take off a thin coat from a whole plank without missing a stroke. As they have not the art of warping a plank, every part of the canoe, whether hollow or flat, is shaped by hand. 3

The

3 One likes to see the exercise of human ingenuity even on trifles. It flatters the consciousness of one's own powers, and affords, too, the ground-work of a comparison nowise disadvantageous to what one believes of his own capabilities. Man has heen defined by a certain writer, an animal that uses instruments for the accomplishment of his purposes. But the definition is faulty in one important point; it does not exclude some beings which are not of the species. It is perhaps impossible to furnish an adequate definition of his nature within the compass of a single logical proposition. And what matter? Every man in his senses knows what man is, and can hardly ever be necessitated to clothe his conception of him, in language metaphysically unexceptionable. But if any trait be more characteristic than another, that of invention may safely be asserted to have the pre-eminence. Man, in effect, evinces the superiority of his nature over all other animals, by a faculty which he seems exclusively to enjoy, in cominon with his Maker, of creating systems, plans, and objects, by the exercise of an understanding and will adapted to certain ends fore

The canoes, or boats, which are used by the inhabitants of this and the neighbouring islands, may be divided into two general classes; one of which they call Ivahahs, the other Pahies.

The Ivahah is used for short excursions to sea, and is wall-sided and flat-bottomed; the Pahie for longer voyages, and is bow-sided and sharp-bottomed. The Ivahahs are all of the same figure, but of different sizes, and used for different

seen and predetermined. No tribes of mankind are totally destitute of this intellectual agency, which is proof, that none are without the merciful visitations of that great beneficent Being from whom the universe has its existence. A canoe, a house, a basket, indicates mind. Mind, by the very constitution of our nature, indicates power and authority. Reason, indeed, may dispute the necessity or the propriety of such connections in our thoughts and feelings, but reason cannot possibly set them aside, or eradicate them from the human breast, though aided by all that dislike and fear of the solemn truth which the conviction of guilt or demerit never fails to produce. These Otaheitans, then, are evidences to themselves of the existence of a power and wisdom superior to their own, to which they are consciously accountable; and they are without excuse, if, knowing this, they do not worship God as they ought. It may amuse, and perhaps instruct the reader, which is the reason for introducing this note, to enquire how far the inventions of the Otaheitans, as of all other people, made any way necessary or desirable by the circumstance of their climate and situation, influence them in their notions on the subject of their national religions. He will find that amongst them, as amongst others, the popular religion is founded, not on the exercise of reason contemplating the works of nature and the dispensations of Providence, but on principles intimately connected with man's physical wants, and modified by the peculiarities of ingenuity, which the artificial supply of those wants occasions; and perhaps he will make out one remarkable conclusion from the survey of them compared with others-that where these arts of inge. nuity are frequent, and at the same time applied to very perishable subjects, there the objects of worship and the kind of religious service, are of a refined nature, allowing little or nothing of the grossness of material idolatry; and that, on the contrary, when they are few, but at the same time exercised on very durable substances, then the greatest tendency exists to the worship of the mere works of man's bands. Sagacious and clever people, in other words, have cunningly devised fables for their creeds; the clumsy-headed and the idle fall down before stocks and stones, as if there were no such things as memory or imagination or understanding in the world. It follows, that to extirpate gross idolatry, you must multiply inventions, and encourage ingenuity-the first operation, it may be confidently said, to which missionaries among the heathens should direct their exertions. It is no less certain, that to destroy spiritual idolatry, nothing short of the mighty power of God himself, implanting a new principle allied to his own nature, is available. When missionaries obtain the management and dispensation of this new principle, then, and only then, they will succeed in making men worshippers in spirit and in truth. But the propriety of their labours is to be evinced on other grounds, than the success attending them.-E.

ferent purposes: Their length is from seventy-two feet to ten, but the breadth is by no means in proportion; for those of ten feet are about a foot wide, and those of more than seventy are scarcely two. There is the fighting Ivabab, the fishing Ivahah, and the travelling Ivahah; for some of these go from one island to another. The fighting Ivahah is by far the longest, and the head and stern are considerably raised above the body, in a semicircular form; particularly the stern, which is sometimes seventeen or eighteen feet high, though the boat itself is scarcely three. These never go to sea single; but are fastened together, side by side, at the distance of about three feel, by strong poles of wood, which are laid across them and lashed to the gunwales. Upon these, in the fore-part, a stage or platform is raised, about ten or twelve feet long, and somewhat wider than the boats, which is supported by pillars about six feet high: Upon this stage stand the fighting men, whose missile weapons are slings and spears; for, among other singularities in the manners of these people, their bows and arrows are used only for diversion, as we throw quoits: Below these stages sit the rowers, who receive from them those that are wounded, and furnish fresh men to ascend in their room. Some of these have a platform of bamboos or other light wood, through their whole length, and considerably broader, by means of which they will carry a great number of men; but we saw only one fitted in this man

ner.

The fishing Ivahahs vary in length from about forty feet to the smallest size, which is about ten; all that are of the length of twenty-five feet and upwards, of whatever sort, Occasionally carry sail. The travelling Ivahah is always double, and furnished with a small neat house about five or six feet broad, and six or seven feet long, which is fastened upon the fore-part for the convenience of the principal people, who sit in them by day, and sleep in them at night. The fishing Ivahahs are sometimes joined together, and have a house on board; but this is not common.

Those which are shorter than five-and-twenty feet, seldom or never carry sail; and, though the stern rises about four or five feet, have a flat head, and a board that projects forward about four feet.

The Pabie is also of different sizes, from sixty to thirty feet long; but, like the Ivahah, is very narrow. One that 1 measured