1770. ROUND THE WORLD. 55 



keep time with such exactness, that I have often 

 heard above an hundred paddles struck against the 

 sides of their boats at once, so as to produce but a 

 single sound, at the divisions of their music. 



A song not altogether unlike this, they sometimes 

 sing without the dance, and as a peaceable amuse- 

 ment : they have also other songs which are sung by 

 the women, whose voices are remarkably mellow and 

 soft, and have a pleasing and tender effect ; the time 

 is slow, and the cadence mournful ; but it is con- 

 ducted with more taste than could be expected 

 among the poor ignorant savages of this half-deso- 

 late country ; especially as it appeared to us, who 

 were none of us much acquainted with music as a 

 science, to be sung in parts ; it was at least sung by 

 many voices at the same time. 



They have sonorous instruments, but they can 

 scarcely be called instruments of music ; one is the 

 shell, called the Triton's trumpet, with which they 

 make a noise not unlike that which our boys some- 

 times make with a cow's horn : the other is a small 

 wooden pipe, resembling a child's nine-pin, only 

 much smaller, and in this there is no more music 

 than in a pea-whistle. They seem sensible indeed 

 that these instruments are not musical ; for we never 

 heard an attempt to sing to them, or to produce with 

 them any measured tones that bore the least resem- 

 blance to a tune. 



To what has been already said of the practice of 

 eating human flesh, I shall only add, that in almost 

 every cove where we landed, we found flesh-bones 

 of men near the places where fires had been made ; 

 and that among the heads that were brought on board 

 by the old man, some seemed to have false eyes, and 

 ornaments in their ears as if alive. That which Mr. 

 Banks bought was sold with great reluctance by the 

 possessor : the head was manifestly that of a young 

 person about fourteen or fifteen years of age, and 

 by the contusions on one side appeared to have re- 



e 4 



