17?4 ROUND THE WOULD. 3<2l 



that the whole island raised only between six and 

 seven thousand men, but we now saw two districts 

 only raise that number; so that he must have taken 

 his account from some old establishment, or else he 

 only meant Tatatous, that is, warriors, or men trained 

 from their infancy to arms, and did not include the 

 rowers, and those necessary to navigate the other 

 vessels. I should think he only spoke of this num- 

 ber as the standing troops or militia of the island, 

 and not their whole force. This point I shall leave 

 to be discussed in another place, and return to the 

 subject. 



After we had well viewed this fleet, I wanted 

 much to have seen the admiral, to have gone with 

 him on board the war canoes. We inquired for him 

 as we rowed past the fleet to no purpose. We put 

 ashore and inquired, but the noise and crowd was so 

 great, that no one attended to what we said. At last 

 Tee came and whispered us in the ear, that Otoo was 

 gone to Matavai, advising us to return thither, and 

 not to land where we were. We accordingly pro- 

 ceeded for the ship, and this intelligence and advice 

 received from Tee gave rise to new conjectures. In 

 short, we concluded that this Towha was some power- 

 ful disaffected chief, who was upon the point of 

 making war against his sovereign ; for we could not 

 imagine Otoo had any other reason for leaving Opar- 

 ree in the manner he did. 



We had not been long gone from Oparree before 

 the whole fleet was in motion, to the westward from 

 whence it came. When we got to Matavai, our 

 friends there told us, that this fleet was part of the 

 armament intended to go against Eimeo, whose chief 

 had thrown off the yoke of Otaheite, and assumed an 

 independency. We were likewise informed that 

 Otoo neither was nor had been at Matavai ; so that 

 we were still at a loss to know why he fled from 

 Oparree. This occasioned another trip thither in 

 the afternoon, where we found him, and now under- 



VOL. III. y 



