TONGATABOO. 19 
thing wrong he was willing to make amends. I thought that the 
conduct of the Currency Lass had been improper, and the decision 
being left to me, I determined that the men should be set at liberty, the 
women given up, and the muskets paid; that King George should 
return the water-casks, and pay for those that had been injured. I 
took occasion, however, to impress upon King George the necessity 
of not being so precipitate in punishing the innocent for the guilty. 
The men of the Currency Lass who had received bad treatment at his 
hands, received a recompense, and so the affair was ended. 
On the morning of the 29th, it was reported to me that Mufa, the 
old blind chief, and his companion, had decamped, without giving any 
notice of their intention, and after eating their fill of the good things 
set before them, besides carrying off the remains of their feast. This 
movement, I afterwards learnt, was owing to their having received 
intelligence of the people of Bea having made another attack upon the 
yam-grounds of the Christians, and carried off a large quantity ; and 
they were fearful lest some retaliatory measures should be taken to 
intercept them. 
This day the kings visited me, with a number of their chiefs and 
people in a large canoe, and made a fine appearance on approaching 
the ship; it was the largest we saw during the voyage: it was one 
hundred feet in length, and of the double kind, which consists of two 
canoes of different size joined together by a deck thrown across them 
both; on this deck a small house is constructed, which serves for a 
cabin to keep off the weather; above the house was a small platform, 
eight feet square, with a railing on each side; the mast, which is about 
thirty feet long, is supported by guys, having a long yard attached to 
it, with its mat-sail of huge dimensions furled. 
In all canoes, both double and single, small hatchways are left at 
both ends, with high combings, and when under way, a man is always 
seen in each baling out the water. Their mode of propelling the canoe 
by sculling is peculiar to the Tongese and Feejees; the sculler, instead 
of using the oar as we do, stands behind it, and holds it perpendicularly. 
The oar has a broad blade, and is ten feet in length: the sculler thus 
has the whole weight of his body to assist his strength in using it: it is 
confined in a hole in the platform. There is generally one of these 
oars at each end, and they are enabled to propel one of these large 
canoes between two and three miles an hour by means of them. 
The Tongese are great adepts in managing their canoes when 
under sail; and they sail much more swiftly on a wind than before it. 
As this canoe is of Feejee origin, I shall defer describing it until a 
succeeding chapter. 
