1769 MUSIC 143 
with arrows unfledged, kneeling upon one knee, and dropping 
the bow from their hands the instant the arrow parts from 
it. I measured a shot made by Tubourai Tamaide ; it was 
274 yards, yet he complained that as the bow and arrows 
were bad he could not shoot as far as he ought to have 
done. At Ulhietea bows were less common, but the people 
amused themselves by throwing a kind of javelin eight or 
nine feet long at a mark, which they did with a good deal 
of dexterity, often striking the trunk of a plantain tree, 
their mark, in the very centre. I could never observe that 
either these or the Otahite people staked anything; they 
seemed to contend merely for the honour of victory. 
Music is very little known to them, and this is the more 
wonderful as they seem very fond of it. They have only 
two instruments, the flute and the drum. The former is 
made of a hollow bamboo, about a foot long, in which are 
three holes: into one of these they blow with one nostril, 
stopping the other nostril with the thumb of the left hand ; 
the other two they stop and unstop with the forefinger of the 
left, and middle finger of the right hand. By this means 
they produce four notes, and no more, of which they have 
made one tune that serves them for all occasions. To it 
they sing a number of songs, pehay as they call them, 
generally consisting of two lines, affecting a coarse metre, 
and generally in rhyme. Maybe these lines would appear 
more musical if we well understood the accent of their 
language, but they are as downright prose as can be written. 
I give two or three specimens of songs made upon our 
arrival. 
Te de pahai de parow-a 
Ha maru no mina. 
E pahah tayo malama tai ya 
No tabane tonatou whannomi ya. 
E turai eattu terara patee whennua toai 
Ino o maio pretane to whennuaia no tute. 
At any time of the day when they are lazy they amuse 
themselves by singing the couplets, but especially after dark ; 
