POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES, 365 
was supposed to depend. The favour of the gods 
was propitiated by prayers, offerings, and sacrifi¬ 
ces ; human victims were not included among the 
latter, which principally consisted in fish. 
On my voyage from New Zealand to Tahiti, we 
made this island on the 2*6th of January, 1817. 
The higher parts of the mountains seemed barren, 
but the lower hills, with many of the valleys, and 
the shores, were covered with verdure, and en¬ 
riched with trees and bushes. The island did not 
appear to be surrounded by a reef, and, conse¬ 
quently, but little low land was seen. The waves 
of the ocean dashed against the base of those 
mountains, which, extending to the sea, divided 
the valleys that opened upon the western shore. 
As we were not far from the island when the sun 
withdrew his light, we lay off and on through the 
night, and, at daybreak the next morning, found 
ourselves at some distance from the shore. We 
sailed towards the island till about 10 a. m. ; when, 
being within two miles of the beach, the head 
of our vessel was turned to the north, and we 
moved slowly along in a direction parallel with the 
coast. We soon beheld several canoes put oft' 
from the land, and not less than thirty were 
afterwards seen paddling around us. There were 
neither females nor children in any of them. 
The men were not tataued, and wore only a girdle 
of yellow ti leaves round their waists. Their 
bodies, neither spare nor corpulent, were finely 
shaped; their complexion a dark copper colour; 
their features regularly formed ; and their counte¬ 
nances, often handsome, were shaded by long 
black straight or curling hair. Notwithstanding 
all our endeavours to induce them to approach the 
ship, they continued for a long time at some dis- 
