130 



TONGA ISLAND. 



■which muskets may be fired in case of an attack. The build- 

 ings are of elliptical or circular form ; they are divided into 

 two or three apartments by matting or tapa screens, and those 

 of the better class look clean and comfortable. The furniture 

 consists of the ava-bowl,* a box containing all the valuables 

 of the family, a pile or two of mats, serving both as beds and 

 settees, and a few rolls of thin tapa, which the inmates use as 

 a covering at night, and to protect them from the mosquitoes, 

 which are not only very abundant, but extremely troublesome. 

 The house of King Josiah is no larger nor better constructed 

 than those of his subjects. All the women and children whom 

 I saw were nearly white, and had pleasing features. It is the 

 custom here for children of both sexes to go about in a state 

 of nature. In the outskirts of the town I fell in with several 

 young girls, who were employed in making tapa cloth. The 

 mode of proceeding was as follows : — Each piece of bark was 

 taken singly, and laid on a piece of wood fifteen or twenty feet 

 long, six inches square, and smooth on the upper side. It 

 was then beaten with a mallet of hard, heavy wood, about 

 twenty inches in length by three inches wide, till the required 

 extent and texture were produced. Three sides of this piece 

 of wood are carved in ribs or grooves, in order that -one mallet 

 may answer for the different kinds of cloth that are made. 

 Sometimes four or five pieces of bark are necessary to make one 

 piece of cloth. When the cloth is made it is laid out in the 

 sun, where it soon dries, and is ready for use. Two of these 

 girls had European features, with jet-black locks, which almost 



* The Ava is a root of a pungent and an Intoxicating nature, with which the rnoh 

 Eire fond of indulging themselves. They employ young girls to chew it for them, 

 and spit it into a wooden bowl used for no other purpose; after which a small 

 quantity of water is added to it, when the juice is strained into cups made of 

 cocoa nut-shells, arid passed round arnjng them. It lias the effect of making the 

 skin fall off in white scales, affects th nerves and appetite, and brings on a pre- 

 mature nl t age 



