PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
119 
From the disposition of the inhabitants and the superiority of their CHAP, 
numbers, there was reason to apprehend a different result ; and the 
quietness with which it was conducted must be attributed to their Jm*. 
being kept at a distance during its performance. 
q^he boats were now sent to survey the groupe, and were kept 
constantly employed upon it from daylight to dusk. In the course 
of this examination every part was visited, and we had frequent com- 
munication with the natives, who on such occasions were always civil, 
and brought such supplies of fruit and food as their scanty means 
afforded, and generally abstained from the indulgence of their propen- 
sity for thieving, which when numerous they so fully indulged. Their 
behaviour was indeed so different from what it had been, that we must 
attribute it to the operation of fear, as their numbers were then very 
small, in consequence of our visits being unexpected and the population 
cf each village very limited. The net we had taken off the shore was 
carried round to the principal village and offered in return for the arti- 
cles that had been stolen, but whether our meaning was understood 
cr not, they were never produced. 
This village is situated in a bay, at the eastern foot of Mount 
F^uff, and is rendered conspicuous by a hut of very large dimen- 
sions, which we shall describe hereafter, and by a quadrangular build- 
mg of large blocks of coral erected in the water, at a few yards dis- 
tance from the shore, which appeared to us to be a morai. Upon its 
iiorthern extreme stood a small hut, planted round with trees, which 
it Was conjectured contained images and offerings ; but, as the door 
^as closed, and the natives were watching us, we would not examine it. 
Contiguous to it there was a body placed upon boards, wrapped in thick 
folds of paper cloth ; and, not far from it, another enveloped in a smaller 
quantity of the same material. There was no offensive smell whatever 
from either of these corpses, though the one last mentioned did not 
appear to have been long exposed. The heads of both were lying to the 
E. ; both bodies were more abundantly surrounded by cloth than 
any we had seen here ; and from the nature of the platform on which 
they were placed, which must have required considerable labour to con- 
struct, we concluded they were the bodies of chiefs ; and we were, on 
