in the Pacific Ocean. Ill 



In one of those excursions, I was led to the chief place of 

 religious ceremony in the valley. It is situated high up the 

 valley of the Hawous, and I regret extremely that I had it not 

 in my power to make a correct drawing of it on the spot, as it 

 far exceeds in splendour every thing of the kind described by 

 Captain Cook, or represented in the plates which accompany his 

 voyage. In a large and handsome grove formed by bread-fruit, 

 cocoa-nut, and toa-trees (the tree of which the spears and war 

 clubs are made) and a variety of other trees with which I am not 

 acquainted, situated at the foot of a steep mountain by the side 

 of a rivulet, and on a platform made after the usual manner, is 

 a deity formed of hard stone, about the common height of a 

 man, but larger proportioned every other way. It is in a squat- 

 ting posture, and not badly executed. His ears and eyes are 

 large, his mouth wide, his arms and legs short and small ; and, 

 on the whole, is such a figure as a person would expect to meet 

 among a people where the art of sculpture is in its infancy. 

 Arranged on each side of him, as well as in the rear and front, 

 are several others, of nearly equal size, formed of the wood of 

 the bread-fruit tree. They are not more perfect in their propor- 

 tions than the other, and appear to be made on the same model. 

 Probably they are copies, and the stone god may serve as a model 

 of perfection for all the sculptures of the island, as their house- 

 hold gods, their ornaments for the handles of their fans, their 

 stilts, and, in fact every representation of the figure of a man is 

 made on the same plan. To the right and left of those gods are 

 two obehsks, formed very fancifully and neatly of bamboos and 

 the leaves of the palm and cocoa-nut trees interwoven. The 

 whole is handsomely decorated with streamers of white cloth, 

 which give a picturesque and elegant appearance. The obelisks 

 are about thirty-five feet in height, and about the base of them 

 were hung the heads of hogs and tortoises, as I was informed, as 

 offerings to their gods. On the right of this grove, distant only 

 a few paces, were four splendid war canoes, furnished with their 

 outriggers, and decorated with ornaments of human hair, coral 

 shells, &c. with an abundance of white streamers. Their heads 

 were placed towards the mountain, and in the stern of each was 

 a figure of a man with a paddle steering, in full dress, ornamented 

 with plumes, ear-rings made to represent those formed of whales' 

 teeth, and every other ornament of the fashion of the country. 



I believe, from what I have seen and learnt of these people, 

 that their religion is the same as that of the Society and Sand- 

 wich Islands ; a religion that not only perplexed Captain Cook, 

 but all the learned men who accompanied him, and as may be 

 naturally supposed, has greatly perplexed me. Their priests are 

 their oracles ; they are considered but little inferior to their gods; 



