THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
holding it up, give a fmart ftroke, till he brought it into 1778. 
an horizontal polition, ftriking with the foot, on the fame v February ‘, 
fide, upon the ground, and, with his other hand, beating 
his breaft at the fame time. They play at bowls, with pieces 
of the whetftone mentioned before, of about a pound 
weight, fliaped fomewhat like a fmall cheefe, but rounded 
at the fides and edges, which are very nicely polhhed; and 
they have other bowls of the fame fort, made of a heavy, 
reddifh brown clay, neatly glazed over with a compofition 
of the fame colour, or of a coarfe, dark grey Hate. They 
alfo ufe, in the manner that we throw quoits, fmall, 
flat, rounded pieces of the writing flate, of the diameter 
of the bowls, but fcarcely a quarter of an inch thick, alfo 
well polifhed. From thefe circumftances, one would be 
induced to think, that their games are rather trials of fkill 
than of ftrength. 
In every thing manufactured by thefe people, there ap¬ 
pears to be an uncommon degree of neatnefs and ingenuity. 
Their cloth, which is the principal manufacture, is made 
from the morns papyrifera ; and, doubtlefs, in the fame 
manner as at Otaheite and Tongataboo; for we bought 
fome of the grooved flicks, with which it is beaten. Its 
texture, however, though thicker, is rather inferior to that 
of the cloth of either of the other places ; but, in colour¬ 
ing or ftaining it, the people of Atooi difplay a fuperiority 
of tafte, by the endlefs variation of figures which they ex¬ 
ecute. One would fuppofe, on feeing a number of their 
pieces, that they had borrowed their patterns from fome 
mercer’s fhop, in which the molt elegant productions of 
China and Europe are collected; befides fome original pat¬ 
terns of their own. Their colours, indeed, except the red, 
are not very bright; but the regularity of the figures and 
fixipes 
