96 OTAHITE CHAP. V 
this morning to see her. A small square was neatly railed 
in with bamboo, and in the midst of it a canoe awning set 
up upon two posts; in this the body was laid, covered with 
fine cloth. Near this was laid fish, meat, etc. for the gods, 
not for the deceased, but to satisfy the hunger of the deities 
lest they should eat the body, which Tubourai told us they 
would certainly do, if this ceremony were neglected. In 
the front of the square was a kind of stile, or place lower 
than the rest, where the relatives of the deceased stood 
when they cried or bled themselves. Under the awning 
were numberless rags containing the blood and tears they 
had shed. Within a few yards were two occasional houses ; 
in one of them some of the relations, generally a good 
many, constantly remained; in the other the chief male 
mourner resided, and kept a very remarkable dress in 
which he performed a ceremony. Both dress and ceremony 
I shall describe when I have an opportunity of seeing it in 
perfection, which Tubourai promises me I shall soon have. 
This day we kept the King’s birthday, which had been 
delayed on account of the absence of the two observing 
parties. Several of the Indians dined with us and drank 
his Majesty’s health by the name of Kilnargo, for we could 
not teach them to pronounce a word more like King George. 
Tupia (Oborea’s right-hand man, who was with her when 
the Dolphin was here), to show his loyalty, got most 
enormously drunk. 
6th. In walking into the woods yesterday, I saw in the 
hands of an Indian an iron tool, made in the shape of the 
Indian adzes, but very different, I am sure, from anything 
that had been carried out or made either by the Dolphin or 
this ship. This excited my curiosity, the more so as I 
was told that it did not come out of either of those ships, 
but from two others which came here together. This was 
a discovery not to be neglected. With much difficulty 
and labour I at last got the following account of them, viz. 
that in their month of Pepare (which answers to our January 
1768), two Spanish ships came here, commanded by a man 
whom they called To Otterah ; that they lay eight days in a 
