1777 THE pacific OCEAN. 299 



table with him, or even to eat in his presence. I own 

 that I considered Feenou as a very convenient guest, 

 on account of this etiquette. For, before his arrival, 

 I had generally a larger company than 1 could well 

 find room for, and my table overflowed with crowds 

 of both sexes. For it is not the custom at the 

 Friendly Islands, as it is at Otaheite, to deny to their 

 females the privilege of eating in company with the 

 men. 



The first day of our arrival at Annamooka, one of 

 the natives had stolen out of the ship a large junk 

 axe. I now applied to Feenou to exert his authority 

 to get it restored to me ; and so implicitly was he 

 obeyed, that it was brought on board while we were 

 at dinner. These people gave us very frequent op- 

 portunities of remarking what expert thieves they 

 were. Even some of their chiefs did not think this 

 profession beneath them. On the 9th, one of them 

 was detected carrying out of the ship, concealed 

 under his clothes, the bolt belonging to the spun- 

 yarn winch, for which I sentenced him to receive 

 a dozen lashes, and kept him confined till he paid a 

 hog for his liberty. After this we were not troubled 

 with thieves of rank. Their servants, or slaves how- 

 ever, were still employed in this dirty work ; and 

 upon them a flogging seemed to make no greater 

 impression than it would have done upon the main- 

 mast. When any of them happened to be caught in 

 the act, their masters, far from interceding for them, 

 would often advise us to kill them. As this was a 

 punishment we did not choose to inflict, they gene- 

 rally escaped without any punishment at all ; for 

 they appeared to us to be equally insensible of the 

 shame and of the pain of corporal chastisement. 

 Captain Clerke at last hit upon a mode of treatment 

 which we thought had some effect. He put them 

 under the hands of the barber, and completely shaved 

 their heads ; thus pointing them out as objects of 

 ridicule to their countrymen, and enabling our 



