I64? cook's voyage to dec. 



of a darker colour, with a fiercer aspect, and dif- 

 ferently punctured. I was informed, that at Ma- 

 taeeva and others of them, it is a custom for the 

 men to give their daughters to strangers who arrive 

 amongst them ; but the pairs must be five nights 

 lying near each other, without presuming to pro- 

 ceed farther. On the sixth evening, the father of 

 the young woman treats his guest with food, and 

 informs his daughter that she must that night re- 

 ceive him as her husband. The stranger, however, 

 must not offer to express the least dislike, though 

 the bed-fellow allotted to him should be ever so dis- 

 agreeable ; for this is considered as an unpardonable 

 affront, and is punished with death. Forty men of 

 Bolabola, who, incited by curiosity, had roamed as 

 far as Mataeeva in a canoe, were treated in this man- 

 ner ; one of them having incautiously mentioned his 

 dislike of the woman who fell to his lot, in the hear- 

 ing of a boy who informed her father. In conse- 

 quence of this, the Mataeevans fell upon them ; but 

 these warlike people killed three times their own 

 number ; though with the loss of all their party ex- 

 cept five. These hid themselves in the woods, and 

 took an opportunity, when the others were burying 

 their dead, to enter some houses, where, having pro- 

 vided themselves with victuals and water, they car- 

 ried them on board a canoe, in which they made 

 their escape ; and after passing Mataia, at which they 

 would not touch, at last arrived safe atEimeo. The 

 Bolabolans, however, were sensible enough that their 

 travellers had been to blame ; for a canoe from 

 Mataeeva, arriving some time after at Bolabola, so 

 far were they from retaliating upon them for the 

 death of their countrymen, that they acknowledged 

 they had deserved their fate, and treated their visitors 

 kindly. 



These low isles are, doubtless, the farthest navi- 

 gation, which those of Otaheite and the Society 

 islands perform at present. It seems to be a ground- 



