1777 THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 3()5 



in general, they were at short commons. Nor is this 

 to be wondered at, since most of the yams, and 

 other provisions which they brought with them, were 

 sold to us; and they never thought of returning to 

 their own habitations, while they could find any sort 

 of subsistence in our neighbourhood. Our station was 

 upon an uncultivated point of land; so that there 

 were none of the islanders, who, properly, resided 

 within half a mile of us. But even at this dis- 

 tance, the multitude of strangers being so great, 

 one might have expected that every house would 

 have been much crowded. It was quite other- 

 wise. The families residing there were as much 

 left to themselves as if there had not been a super- 

 numerary visitor near them. All the strangers lived 

 in little temporary sheds, or under trees and bushes ; 

 and the cocoa-trees were stripped of their branches 

 to erect habitations for the chiefs. 



In this walk we met with about half a dozen 

 women in one place at supper. Two of the com- 

 pany, I observed, being fed by the others, on our 

 asking the reason, the said taboo mattee. On farther 

 inquiry we found that one of them had, two months 

 before, washed the dead corpse of a chief; and that, 

 on this account, she was not to handle any food for 

 five months. The other had performed the same 

 office to the corpse of another person of inferior 

 rank, and was now under the same restriction, but 

 not for so long a time. At another place hard by, 

 we saw another woman fed ; and we learnt that she 

 had assisted in washing the corpse of the above men- 

 tioned chief. 



Early the next morning the king came on board 

 to invite me to an entertainment, which he proposed 

 to give the same day. He had already been under 

 the barber's hands ; his head being all besmeared 

 with red pigment, in order to redden his hair, which 

 was naturally of a dark brown colour. After break- 

 fast I attended him to the shore ; and we found his 



