1779' THE PACIFIC OCEAN. ] S3 



with a gentle motion of the arms, in the same man- 

 ner as the Friendly Islanders, had a very pleasing 

 effect. 



It is very remarkable, that the people of these 

 islands are great gamblers. They have a game very 

 much like our draughts ; but, if one may judge from 

 the number of squares, it is much more intricate. 

 The board is about two feet long, and is divided into 

 two hundred and thirty-eight squares, of which there 

 are fourteen in a row, and they make use of black 

 and white pebbles, which they move from square to 

 square. 



There is another game, which consists in hiding a 

 stone under a piece of cloth, which one of the par- 

 ties spreads out, and rumples in such a manner, that 

 the place where the stone lies is difficult to be distin- 

 guished. The antagonist, with a stick, then strikes 

 the part of the cloth where lie imagines the stone to 

 be ; and as the chances are, upon the whole, con- 

 siderably against his hitting it, odds, of all degrees, 

 varying with the opinion of the skill of the parties, 

 are laid on the side of him who hides. 



Besides these games, they frequently amuse them- 

 selves with racing-matches between the boys and 



counterpoint, or singing in several parts, cannot be acquired in 

 the coarse manner in which it is performed in the churches, with- 

 out considerable time and practice. It is, therefore, scarcely cre- 

 dible, that a people, semi-barbarous, should naturally arrive at 

 any perfection in that art which it is much doubted whether the 

 Greeks and Romans, with all their refinements in music, ever at- 

 tained, and which the Chinese, who have been longer civilized 

 than any people on the globe, have not yet found out. 



If Captain Burney (who, by the testimony of his father, per- 

 haps the greatest musical theorist of this or any other age, was 

 able to have done it) had written down, in European notes, the 

 concords that these people sung ; and if these concords had been 

 such as European ears could tolerate, there would have been no 

 longer doubt of the fact: but, as it is, it would, in my opinion^ be 

 a rash judgment to venture to affirm that they did or did not un- 

 derstand counterpoint ; and therefore I fear that this curious mat- 

 ter must be considered as still remaining undecided. 



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