H 



U 



M 



A 



N 



s 



p 



E 



C 



I 



E 



S. 



471 



and 



ght judly be filled a cadenced metrical performance or a ARTS 



carmen in the acceptation of the word as it is ufed in the formule 

 delivered by the Roman Feciales, Livii. Hill. lib. i. c; 



AND 



SCIENCES 



1. cap. 24. 



To the lall branch of the liberal and polite arts exercifdd by the 

 natives, at Taheitee and its neighbourhood, belong their drAxMA- 



TIC PERFORMANCES. Thcfe are blended with dances and fongs, 



r 



#_ 



■ r 



with this rellri(flion, that men only are the atfting perfons, in 

 the fame manner as at Rome, where no females were permitted to 



ad 



The drama is a fimple reprefentation of the common occur 



of life. A man entrufl 



h 



fervants with the care of 



w 



goods, they fall alleep, and though they are lying on their mailers 

 property, the thieves are fubtle enough to Heal them away from 



under the perions who were appointed to watch them 5 fometimes 

 the thieves are deted:ed and feverely beaten, and fometimes they 

 return the blows. In another farce, a man has a daughter, who 

 has a lover 5 the father dillikes him and refufes his daughter, and 

 being afraid of being deceived he watches her clofely, but in the 



dead. 



F 



Jiuaheim ittvci% to have been of the fame nature, audit was repeated by hlin on the firft landings 



I— 



ziO-Raiedea* See Hawkefworth, vol, li. p. 251, and 156. 



* At our firfl landing 



in New-Caledonia, the Chief Te-ahooma^ and a^icther Clue£ 



pronounced fome cadenced, folemn fpeeches, intermixed with feme fhort refponfes from 

 certain eld men. See George Forfter*3 Voyage, vol. ii. p. 382. All which not only proves- 

 that the firft interview and making of peace is a folemn atSt obferved by nations of very* 



different origin, and living at a confiderable diflance from one another, but ^alfo that theic 

 folemn fpceches on thcfe occafions are a^kind cf poem or cadenced metrical |)erformai.c»». 



\ 



