34 
SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
small vessels*, and that their desire of fire-arms induced 
them to refuse to supply merchant ships with provisions on 
any other terms, and procured them their first artillery, which 
they used only in their forts. Some Europeans had been 
left in the Islands to collect sandal-wood, pearl-shell, and 
pearls, for the China market; others had settled there from 
choice; and the rival chiefs derived great assistance from 
their superior knowledge in the arts of destruction. Two 
of these foreigners, however, John Young and Davies, were 
of more excellent use: they taught their patron to build 
houses of brick; and the latter being an expert carpenter, 
household furniture improved extremely. They also in¬ 
troduced the culture of many new vegetables and fruits, 
procuring seeds and plants from the foreign traders; and by 
the care they bestowed on some goats, which had been left 
on the Islands, they made their hosts acquainted, for the 
first time, with the luxuries of the dairy, and with a variety 
of animal food, more delicate than they had hitherto known. 
Captain Vancouver himself was one of the greatest bene¬ 
factors to the Islands. Although he constantly refused to 
furnish the chiefs with any fire-arms or ammunition, he 
gave them a breed of cattle and of sheep, which Tameha- 
meha declared to be tabu, or sacred, for ten years. The 
* See page 28 . 
