Marquesas and TaJiiti'au Houses. 7 



Now Cook speaks of the Marquesan houses that he saw at Tahuata (Santa 



Cristina of his voj'age) in by no means so eulogistic tone. He says:^ 



Their dwellings are in the vallies and on the sides of the hills, near their plantations. They 

 are built after the same manner as at Otaheite ; but are much meaner, and only covered with the 

 leaves of the bread tree. The most of them are built on a square, or oblong, pavement of stone 

 raised some height above the level of the ground. They likewise have such pavements near their 

 houses, on which they sit to eat and amuse themselves. 



FIG. 4. T.VHITIAN VILLAGE. 



Not a word about the most marked peculiarity of the last description — the 

 halved form shown in Fig. 2. The platforms are also shown in that figure. This is 

 the more remarkable as Cook was usually quick to notice any strange thing, and this 

 manner of building he found nowhere else in the Pacific. 



Society Islands, Tahiti. — From the savage tempered and warlike Marquesan 

 we turn to the indolent, pleasure loving Tahitian. The one a cannibal, the other 

 loving his fellows in a different way. Cook had more time to study the Tahitians, 

 and he certainly gives us a pleasant pi(5lure:^ 



^Cook, Second Voyage. I, p. 310. 



•"Cook, Journal (printed verbatim). July, 1769, p. 96. 



[191J 



