POKTER^S JOURNAL. 



109 



that I would give them some to take home to plant. When 

 we first arrived at this island, we offered them our ship- 

 bread, but they would not eat it, declaring it was made of 

 coral rocks, and nowise to be compared to bread-fruit. 

 But after we had got our oven to work, and issued fresh 

 bread to the crew, they, particularly the women, became 

 extravagantly fond of it, and there was no favour they 

 would not grant, nor any risk they would not run to obtain 

 a small loaf. They would swim off to the ships, about 

 meal times, in large shoals, and wait there for the sailors 

 to throw them pieces of bread, although the harbour was 

 much infested with large and ravenous sharks, and one of 

 the natives was devoured by them soon after our arrival. 

 A string of beads, highly as they were valued, could be 

 purchased for a loaf ; and chiefs, after walking many miles 

 over mountains to bring us presents of fruit and hogs, 

 would return well satisfied, if I gave them a hot roll from 

 the oven. 



I endeavoured to impress them with an idea of the 

 value of the seeds I was planting, and explained to them 

 the different kinds of fruit they would produce, assuring 

 them of their excellence ; and as a farther inducement to 

 attend to their cultivation, I promised them that, on my 

 return, I would give them a whale's tooth for every ripe 

 pumpkin and melon they would bring me. To the chiefs 

 of the distant tribes, to whom I distributed the different 

 kinds of seeds, I made the same promise. I also gave 

 them several English hogs of a superior breed, v/hich they 

 w^ere very anxious to procure. I left in charge of Wilson 

 some male and female goats, and as I had a number of 

 young Gallipagos tortoises, I distributed several among 

 the chiefs, and permitted a great many to escape into the 

 bushes and among the grass. 



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 Havvous, 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 descri- 

 bed by Captain Cook, or represented in the plates which ac- 

 company his voyage. In a large and handsome grove form- 

 ed by bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, and toa-trees (the treeof which 

 the spears and war clubs are made) and a variety of other 



