THIRD VOYAGE 271 



take the advantage of the first favourable wind. The king, 

 who was one of our company this day at dinner, I observed 

 took particular notice of the plates. This occasioned me to 

 make him an offer of one, either of pewter or of earthenware. 

 He chose the first, and then began to tell us the several uses 

 to which he intended to apply it. Two of them are so 

 extraordinary, that I cannot omit mentioning them. He 

 said, that whenever he should have occasion to visit any of 

 the other islands, he would leave this plate behind him at 

 Tongataboo as a sort of representative in his absence, that 

 the people might pay it the same obeisance they do to him 

 self in person. He was asked what had been usually em- 

 ployed for this purpose before he got this plate ; and we had 

 the satisfaction of learning from him, that this singular 

 honour had hitherto been conferred on a wooden bowl in 

 which he washed his hands. The other extraordinary use to 

 which he meant to apply it, in the room of his wooden bowl, 

 was to discover a thief. He said, that when anything was 

 stolen, and the thief could not be found, the people were all 

 assembled together before him, when he washed his hands 

 in water in this vessel, after which it was cleaned, and then 

 the whole multitude advanced, one after another, and 

 touched it in the same manner that they touch his foot when 

 they pay him obeisance. If the guilty person touched it, 

 he died immediately upon the spot, not by violence, but 

 by the hand of Providence ; and if any one refused to 

 touch it, his refusal was a clear proof that he was the man. 



" In the morning of the 5th, the day of the eclipse, the 

 weather was dark and cloudy, with showers of rain, so that 

 we had little hopes of an observation. About nine o'clock 

 the sun broke out at intervals for about half an hour ; after 

 which it was totally obscured till within a minute or two of 

 the beginning of the eclipse. We were all at our telescopes, 

 viz., Mr. Bayly, Mr. King, Captain Clerke, Mr. Bligh, and 

 myself. I lost the observation by not having a dark glass 

 at hand suitable to the clouds that were continually passing 

 over the sun ; and Mr. Bligh had not got the sun into the 

 field of his telescope ; so that the commencement of the 

 eclipse was only observed by the other three gentlemen. 



" The general appearance of the country conveys to the 

 spectator an idea of the most exuberant fertility, whether we 

 respect the places improved by art, or those still in a natural 

 state. At a distance the surface seems entirely clothed with 

 trees of various sizes ; the tall cocoa-palms are far from 

 being the smallest ornament to any country that produces 

 them. 



" Of cultivated fruits the principal are the plantains and 

 bread-fruit. There is plenty of excellent sugar-cane. 



