home by her. The wind came on fresh from the mountains; the ship could not work into the harbour, and was carried to leeward, and it was then impossible for him to put back to land. He therefore requested the captain to carry him to Nooaheevah, or Sir Henry Martyn's Island, one of the same groupe, about a degree to the N. W. and the American being a kind-hearted man, bore away and landed him there. Here then Crook was set ashore, without any thing whatever, except the clothes in which he stood. The natives astonished at hearing a white man speak their own language, considered him as a God, till he dissuaded them from that opinion. The chief, however, made him his tayo, or chosen friend. A large piece of ground was given him well stored with bread fruit and cocoa nut trees, and with the tarro root. He enclosed it, built a hut there, made himself respected, and endeavoured to make himself useful. This change of abode had been to his advantage. Nooaheevah is a plentiful island. The fruits of Taheite, grow there in abundance; and springs and rivulets are so numerous, that vegetation is even more luxuriant there than at Tongataboo. The natives are hospitable, but incessantly at war among themselves; and war is to them the double pleasure of the battle and the chase, for they bake and devour the slain. Crook's influence was never sufficient to check this bloody spirit; yet he thought that if a body of missionaries were settled among them, they would be able, in great measure, to prevent these wars. He was too conscientious to act the part, or he himself might have been the Mango Capac of the island. There are few traces of government among these islanders, Their main religion is hero-worship, the most widely diffused of all forms of faith (for the saint-worship of the Catholicks is the same thing under a different name, and it exists also among the

Mahommedans) and, except perhaps sun-worship, of all others, the most natural. When he had resided there seven months, two South Sea whalers put in for refreshment. Wishing to return to Christina, he thought the only means of getting there was by way of England, which he hoped to reach before the Duff would sail with the second detachment of missionaries, and accordingly, he departed in one of these vessels.

The Duff after her departure from the Marquesas returned to Taheite, where every thing had gone on well during her absence. There Harris joined the missionaries, and Gillham, the only surgeon among them, abandoned the mission. Captain Wilson made a final distribution of property among the brethren, carried away by force one of the Swedes, a measure necessary for their safety, and sailed again for Tongataboo. He there found that the missionaries had separated into small parties. They had done this because there was not a man in the island, who was not, in his own phrase," dying in love for their things," and because Connelly informed them, the chiefs had determined to plunder them, and only waited for the return of the ship, thinking that more articles would be left, and that they should have no vengeance to apprehend. In consequence of this they thought it better to separate and put themselves under the protection of different chiefs. Captain Wilson took Connelly away by force, for having repeatedly threatened the missionaries; but he left Ambler and another wretch by name Morgan, both of whom were as bad or even worse. Every thing however was thought to promise fairly when the Duff finally departed. The group to which Tongataboo belongs had been named the Friendly Islands, and the brethren who were stationed there wrote to the society by captain Wilson, saying, that surely no appellation was ever better applied. The

knowledge of the gospel they said, would render these islanders "the most amiable people on earth, such was their kindness to strangers, and their generosity to each other. They fully answered the most favourable representations which had ever been given of them!" This must have been written in some hour of sunshine, under the exhilarating influence of gratitude for bounty fresh received, and in the ardour of benevolent hope; the facts which they had already witnessed did not justify such an opinion, and what they afterwards experienced effectually overthrew it.

in

boats, which require constant baling. Their cloth is glazed so highly as to resist wet; their basket work made with great ingenuity; the matting which they use for their floors, and even for clothing, better and more beautiful than what is made at Taheite. In many respects, indeed, they are. advanced beyond the people of that groupe. The bread fruit is not so abundant, and agriculture is, therefore, necessary; and the islanders being thus some degree, accustomed to labour, have learnt something more of the nature of property. Their language is radically the same, but they have the s, the k, and the gamma, or hard g, which the Georgian islanders have not. That the chiefs possess greater authority is not to be accounted among their advantages. Those savages have been found the happiest and least deteriorated in their moral nature, among whom society most nearly resembles the patriarchal system; for that system, in contradiction to the sophistry of the Filmer school, has nothing in common with despotism, and, however monarchy may end, it always begins in violence and injustice. The chiefs are not taller than the common people. Infant murder, infant succession, and that accursed system of the Arreoys, with all the abominations which it produces, are unknown here. Adultery is regarded as a crime; and, though chastity is not esteemed a virtue, that lasciviousness which degrades the Taheiteans even below the brute creation, is here only to be found among the most abandoned of the lowest class.

Tasman discovered Tongataboo in 1643. He saw no weapons among them; a proof not that they were without them, nor that they were accustomed to a state of peace, but that they had entire confidence in their guests, whom indeed there is reason to suppose they believed to be superiour beings. When Cook arrived a hundred and thirty years afterwards, the former visit was remembered, and even the number of years which had since elapsed. The Dutch navigator had given the chief a wooden bowl. Cook found this bowl in possession of the offices of chief justice and viceroy, which it had uninterruptedly exercised, and with an impartiality that has rarely perhaps been equalled. It was used as a divining cup to ascertain the guilt of accused persons, and during the absence of the chief it received homage as his representative. It was superseded by a pewter plate which Cook presented. This reve rence which had been paid the bowl must have proceeded from the respect and wonder with which the natives were impressed by the Dutch and their ship, not from any admiration of a work of art which many of their own manufacturing exceeded. Their clubs are curiously carved; the planks of their canoes feathered and lapt over each other so as to be water-tight, in this rcspect far superiour to the Taheitean

They have no priests; but this by no means implies that they have no superstition. The priests of a false religion do evil by preventing the introduction of any thing better than their own system; but, till any thing better is attempted to be introduced, the good which they do is usually more than a compensation for the mischief. These people, though without a priesthood, have fables

upon which a savage Hesiod might erect a mythology, not more irrational than that which served the people of Athens for their faith in the brightest age of Greece. Each district, and each family of the higher ranks, has its own deity; each individual his Odooa, or attendant spirit, who partakes more of the evil than the good angel, and is sup. posed to inflict disease, and to be propitiated by abstinence, by sacrifices, and the practice of self tormenting. Earth, and sea, and sky, have their presiding gods, who sometimes act in opposition to each other. The wind is under the direction of a goddess, perhaps, because it bloweth as it listeth, and follows no other perceptible rule of change. Calla Filatonga is the name of this deity. The island suffers dreadfully from hurricanes: on these occasions they always impute the calamity to their neglect of her, a person is appointed to represent her, and receive, in her name, offerings of hogs, yams, and kava. This person is chosen for the occasion. The island, according to their belief, rests upon the shoulders of a powerful god called Mowee, but like Atlas, strong as he is, he is weary of his burthen, and not unfrequently strives to shake it off. Whenever they feel the earthquake which this attempt occasions, a tremendous outcry is made over the whole island, and sometimes they endeavour to frighten him into good behaviour by beating the ground with large sticks. The greatest of all their gods is Higgolayo, the lord of the country of the dead. This country they call Doobludha; it lies far distant, and the soul, on its release, is immediately conveyed thither in a large and fast sailing canoe, there to riot in the enjoyment of all sensual delights. But this ar

ticle of belief is peculiar to the chiefs; and the Tooas, or lower classes, fancy that the enjoyments of Doobludha are above* their capacity. Like the Romans, they acknowledge the existence of strange gods, whom they call Fyga, and of these they willingly admit ours to be the most powerful. One of their chiefs, in the amalgamating spirit of polytheism consecrated a house to this god, and always slept in it when he was indisposed, in hopes of obtaining a cure. Here some large conch shells are kept with which to sound the alarm in time of danger, and weapons are laid upon the rafters, that they may there receive a virtue which will render them successful in war.

This chief who went to the god of the English for healing, did not in the mean time, neglect his own, and when his disease became desperate, he resolved upon a desperate remedy. It is the dreadful belief of these islanders, that if a human victim be offered in vicarious sacrifice for the sick, his life and strength will pass into the patient; the nearer the relative who suffers, the more acceptable is the atonement to the Odooa supposed to be, and this wretched old chief, clinging with cowardly selfishness to life, sent for his younger son,† Colelallo, to have him strangled. The youth was told he was to have his little finger cut off: a common form of propitiatory sacrifice; but as soon as he came into his father's presence he was seized; then, comprehending their intention, he bade them use no force, and he would submit to his father's will. They continued their violence, and, by a great exertion, he beat them off; others, among whom was his own sister, came to their assistance, and they effected his death.

VOL. III.

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When the father died, a shocking spectacle was exhibited for two days at his funeral, and over his grave. People of both sexes cut and mangled themselves in the most frantick manner; some thrust spears through their thighs, arms, and cheeks, others beat themselves about the head with clubs, so violently, that blood ran down in streams, and the blows were heard far off. One man, having oiled his hair, set it on fire, and ran about the area with his head in flames. These are melancholy proofs that superstitions of the deadliest kind, will exist without the aid of priestcraft. There is an appetite of religion; a craving after faith in the human mind; it is an instinct by which man is more truly distinguished from all inferiour beings, than he is by form or internal organization, and like all instincts, when checked or perverted, it produces evil commensurate to the good for which it was implanted in

us.

Among savages the conjurors, among barbarians the priests, have ever been found the bitterest enemies to Christianity. Here are a people without either; yet, no where does the attempt at introducing a new religion, seem to have been regarded more unwillingly. Before the departure of the Duff, the missionaries had seen symptoms which might reasonably have alarmed them for their own safety. They witnessed a war, in which some of the prisoners were fastened to trees and burnt alive, and they themselves interceded for, and saved a poor wretch, whom Toogahowe (one of their protectors) had ordered to be tied up with his arms extended, while two women applied burning brands to his arm-pits. One of the chicfs earnestly inquired if any of

the brethren could assist women in difficult labours; but they had little knowledge either of surgery or medicine, and soon perceived how much to their advantage it would have been, if they had all been practitioners, for diseases are common here, and the people unacquainted with any means of curing or even of alleviating them. As the strangers could not cure, the na tives supposed that they could kill; power there must be in them, and if it was not for good, it needs must be for evil. It so happened, that three of the chiefs died shortly after their arrival. An opinion was advanced, and soon spread abroad, that the God of the English had killed them, in answer to the prayers of the missionaries. It was said, that they had never died so fast before; and that if these people continued praying and singing, there would not be a chief left alive. This idea, said the missionaries, could only proceed from the father of lies working in these children of disobedience. Their hopes, however, were too sanguine, and their zeal too fervent, to suffer any abatement from these ill-boding appearances, and when the Duff left them, they seem to have had no apprehension of danger from any person except their wretched countrymen Ambler and Morgan.

A week had not elapsed before it was discovered that Veeson, one of their own number, cohabited with a native woman. When he was "admonished" upon this offence, he acknowledged the fact, confessed its criminality, and proposed to marry the woman, as the only remedy. The unfitness upon their own principles, of such a remedy, was not taken into consideration; but when the ceremony came to be performed,

the poor woman, with a feeling, little to have been expected, burst into tears, and refused to incur the obligations which she was made to understand such a ceremony would impose upon her; alleging, that no due affection subsisted between them; for, that she was entirely actuated by fear of her parents and her chief. Thus deprived of the mask which such a marriage would for a time have afforded him, Veeson gave way to those profligate habits, or propensities, which enthusiasm had only suspended in him, and he delivered up his bible, and all his books, to the other brethren, in spite of their earnest entreaties that he would keep them, and sometimes withdraw from his companions and devote a little while to their perusal. Shortly afterwards, a vessel from Rhode Island arrived. The missionaries went on board to request that the captain would take Ambler and Morgan off the island; but from this he excused himself, saying, he knew them too well already; they were convicts who had escaped from Botany Bay in the same ship with Muir. Bad as this intelligence was, it was not the worst which they learnt, for they were informed, that several of the American crew also meant to remain ashore; and accordingly, no less than seven were left there. Of these, one was a native of Owhyhee, two, by name Beak and Burham, proved to be industrious and well disposed men; the others were ruffians of the most abandoned profligacy, whom Ambler persuaded to leave the ship by telling them that if they grew tired of Tongataboo they could, at any time, plunder the missionaries of tools, to build a vessel, and instruments to navigate her. Their situation was already sufficiently perilous. An old woman of the first rank, died of a complication of disorders, under which she had laboured for many years, yet her death was laid entirely to their charge, and the chief, under whose

protection some of them were settled, sent for Gaulton, and seriously advised that they should desist from the pernicious practice of praying, for if they did not, he feared it would be attended with the most fatal consequences to themselves and to him. They were suspected, they were helpless, they could not make themselves useful, and, worse than all, they were rich.War broke out in the island; they could not bear arms, and the chiefs told them, that being the case they were to expect no protection. In fact it was impossible to bestow any. There was an end of all subordination. The whole ferocity of the Polynesian character now broke out. No quarter was given during the fight. Women dipt their hands in the wounds of the slain, and then licked the blood. One man was seen roasting a dead body on the field of battle to be his feast; a prisoner was cut up alive, and eaten raw! A whole district had been utterly laid waste in a former war, neither man, woman, nor child having been spared, and the same work of devastation seemed about to be renewed. The women and the wounded fled into the spirits' houses, places alike resorted to for health and for sanctuary. Here also some of the brethren took shelter; but it appeared from the threats which were uttered, that though the weaker party crowded to these places as their last hope, the conquerors did not regard them as inviolable. In the course of this war three of the missionaries, and Burham who dwelt with them, were murdered. The others almost miraculously escaped. Even the war was imputed to them. One of them heard the natives into whose hands he had fallen agree with one of the Botany Bay men to loomee-loomee him, that is to beat a broken cocoa-shell into the crown of his head with a club; one of the torments which they sometimes inflict upon their prisoners: and he saw them jag the cocoa-shell for