122 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, could offer them no consolation beyond that of kindness, and giving 
them some beads and trinkets. After a few minutes they disengaged 
Jan, their arms, began dancing, laughing, and saluting us occasionally with 
a rub of the nose : in the midst of this mirth they would suddenly 
relapse into grief, and throw their arms about in a frantic way, until I 
began to fear they might injure themselves ; but this paroxysm was as 
short as that of the mirth by which it was succeeded ; they again began 
to dance, and were afterwards quite cheerful. The only cause to which 
we could attribute this extraordinary conduct, or at least for the me- 
lancholy part of it, was that they might in some way be connected with 
the man who had been wounded upon the raft. And if this were the 
case, it affords a presumption that the custom of self-mutilation on such 
occasions, so common to many of the islands in the Pacific, does not 
exist here. 
As the sun went down the natives pointed to it, and signified to us 
to be gone, exclaiming “ bobo mai.” We got from them a few articles 
of manufacture, very similar to those of Pitcairn Islands. In return for 
these we made them useful presents, and took our leave with the pro- 
mise of “ bobo mai,” which we understood to mean “ come to-morrow.” 
We rowed round the rest of the island, and soon satisfied ourselves of 
its extreme poverty. There were two villages upon its western side, 
situated in deep sandy bays, which would form excellent harbours for 
shipping, if they could be entered ; but this is impracticable from the 
many coral knolls on the outside. 
Lieutenant Belcher describes a morai, which he visited, in the fol- 
lowing manner. A hut, about twenty feet in length by ten wide, and 
seven high, with a thatched roof, of which the eaves were three feet 
from the ground, contained the deity. There were only two apertures, 
about two feet six inches square, furnished with thatched shutters. 
In front of the building, a space about twenty feet square was paved 
with hewn coral slabs, with curbstones at the edges as neatly fitted as 
the pavements in England. Along the whole length of the interior of 
the hut v/as a trough elevated about three feet from the ground ; 
in the centre of which was an idol three feet high, neatly carved and 
polished ; the eyebrows were sculptured, but not the eyes ; and from 
