464 cook's voyage to july, 



of the children. It is not the custom here, as at 

 Otaheite, for the son, the moment he is born, to take 

 from the father the homage and title ; but he suc- 

 ceeds to them at his decease ; so that their form of 

 government is not only monarchical but hereditary. 



The order of succession to the crown has not been 

 of late interrupted ; for we know from a particular 

 circumstance, that the Futtafaihes (Poulaho being 

 only an addition to distinguish the king from the 

 rest of his family) have reigned in a direct line, for 

 at least one hundred and thirty-five years. Upon 

 inquiring whether any account had been preserved 

 amongst them of the arrival of Tasman's ships, 

 we found that this history had been handed down to 

 them from their ancestors, with an accuracy which 

 marks that oral tradition may sometimes be de- 

 pended upon. For they described the two ships as 

 resembling ours, mentioning the place where they 

 had anchored ; their having staid but a few days ; 

 and their moving from that station to Annamooka. 

 And by way of informing us how long ago this had 

 happened, they told us the name of the Futtafaihe 

 who was then king, and of those who had succeeded 

 dowm to Poulaho, who is the fifth since that period ; 

 the first being an old man, at the time of the arrival 

 of the ships. 



From what has been said of the present king, it 

 would be natural to suppose, that he had the highest 

 rank of any person in the islands. But to our great 

 surprise, we found it is not so ; for Latoolibooloo, 

 the person who was pointed out to me as king when 

 I first visited Tongataboo, and three women, are, in 

 some respects, superior to Poulaho himself. On 

 our inquiring who these extraordinary personages 

 were, whom they distinguish by the name and title 

 of Tammaha*? we were told that the late king, 



* The reader need not be reminded that Tamoloa, which sig- 

 nifies a chief, in the dialect of Hamao and Tammaha, become the 

 same word, by the change of a single letter, the articulation of 

 which is not very strongly marked. 



