THROUGH HA WAIF. 
119 
therefore stole the boat, and broke it to pieces the next 
day, in order to obtain the nails to make fish-hooks 
with. We have every reason to believe that this was 
the principal, if not the only motive, by which they 
were actuated in committing the depredation which 
ultimately led to such unhappy consequences. They 
prize nails very highly; and though we do not know 
that they ever went so far in their endeavours to obtain 
a more abundant supply, as the Society islanders did, 
who actually planted them in the ground, hoping they 
would grow like potatoes, or any other vegetable, yet 
such is the value they still set on them, that the fisher¬ 
men would rather receive a wrought nail, to make of it 
a fish-hook according to their own taste, than the best 
English-made fish-hook we could give them. 
It has been supposed that the circumstance of Cap¬ 
tain Cook’s bones being separated, and the flesh taken 
from them, was evidence of a savage and unrelenting 
barbarity; but so far from this, it was the result of the 
highest respect they could shew him. 
We may also mention here, the reason for which the 
remains of Captain Cook received, as was the case, the 
worship of a god. Among the kings who governed 
Hawaii during what may in its chronology be called 
the fabulous age, was Rono or Orono; who, on some 
account, became offended with his wife, and murdered 
her; but afterwards lamented the act so much, as to 
induce a state of mental derangement. In this state 
he travelled through all the islands, boxing and wrest¬ 
ling with every one he met. 
He subsequently set sail in a singularly shaped canoe 
fpr Tahiti, or a foreign country. After his departure he 
was deified by his countrymen, and annual games of 
