6°2 cook's second voyage august, 



not been for this discovery, I make no doubt that 

 these people would have been charged with this vile 

 custom. 



In the evening I took a walk, with some of the 

 gentlemen, into the country on the other side of the 

 harbour, where we had very different treatment from 

 what we had met with in the morning. The people 

 we now visited, among whom was our friend Paowang, 

 being better acquainted with us, showed a readiness 

 to oblige us in every thing in their power. We came 

 to the village which had been visited on the 9th. It 

 consisted of about twenty houses, the most of which 

 need no other description than comparing them to 

 the roof of a thatched house in England taken off 

 the walls and placed on the ground. Some were 

 open at both ends ; others partly closed with reeds ; 

 and all were covered with palm thatch. A few of 

 them were thirty or forty feet long, and fourteen or 

 sixteen broad. Besides these, they have other mean 

 hovels, which, I conceived, were only to sleep in. 

 Some of these stood in a plantation, and I was given 

 to understand, that in one of them lay a dead corpse. 

 They made signs that described sleep, or death j and 

 circumstances pointed out the latter. Curious to see 

 all I could, I prevailed on an elderly man to go with 

 me to the hut, which was separated from the others 

 by a reed fence, built quite round it, at the distance of 

 four or five feet. The entrance was by a space in 

 the fence, made so low as to admit one to step over. 

 The two sides and one end of the hut were closed 

 or built up in the same manner, and with the same 

 materials, as the roof. The other end had been open, 

 but was now well closed up with mats, which I could 

 not prevail on the man to remove, or suffer me to do 

 it. There hung at this end of the hut a matted bag 

 or basket, in which was a piece of roasted yam, and 

 some sort of leaves, all quite fresh. I had a strong 

 desire to see the inside of the hut, but the man was 

 peremptory in refusing this, and even showed an un- 



