One of their most favourite amusements is bathing, in which they generally indulge two or three times a day ; and they have different water games, in which both sexes join. Two posts are fixed about a hundred yards distant from each other, in a depth of water about four feet ; and the company, dividing. into two parties, a large stone is placed between them. The contest is, Which side shall first drag the stone to their own post ; and the divers ge nerally remain a considerable. time struggling around the stone, at the bottom of the water. Another bathing diver sion consists in going out at high water, when the sea rolls in on their flat shores with great force, and then ride in on the swell, steering themselves on the top of the wave with the utmost dexterity, stretching out one hand like a prow, and guiding themselves with the other like a rudder. When a spectator would apprehend that they must infallibly be dashed lifeless on the beach, they will turn on one side with surprising agility, and darting through the next wave, swim out to sea to renew the sport : .or, if tired of the amusement, will shoot through the refulgent surge, and land in perfect safety. Another favourite diversion, especially of the chiefs, is rat shooting. The cocoa nut, roasted and chewed, is strewed by the servants near the holes of these animals ; and the sportsmen take their stand with bows and arrows. By making a squeaking noise like that of the rats, they entice them to come out, and, while they are feeding on the nuts, they take aim alternately, and whosoever kills most in the same number of shots wins the game. Wrest ling and boxing matches furnish another source of enter tainment ; in both of which exercises they have been gene rally conquerors when engaged with Europeans, and are particularly remarkable for the good humour which they preServe when worsted. Though a very active people, they frequently spend whole days in luxurious indolence, walking among the plantations, or collecting in one anothei 's houses for the sake of conversation ; but these more seden tary days are generally concluded by dancing and singing, which is their most favourite amusement. The chief sends through his district, collecting about 40 or 50 young per sons, of both sexes, to dance by torch light with his regular attendants. The women, on these occasions, are clothed with a thin drapery, having their necks and shoulders en circled with wreaths of flowers, and their dark ringlets bespangled with the whitest and most aromatic blossoms. Their dances are said to be beautifully diversified, and to be performed by companies of eighty or a hundred, with the greatest promptness, regularity, and gracefulness of movement. This amusement is frequently continued till midnight, and sometimes till morning, one set retiring to rest, while another rises to dance. It is their great pas. time on all occasions, and generally concludes even their ceremonies of mourning. It is however too often perform ed with little regard to decency, and is generally an incen tive to the most licentious excesses. Their music is very simple and pleasing, but extremely monotonous. Their songs are lively and melodious ; but their instruments are very defective. One, composed of unequal sized reeds, resembles Pan's pipe. Another is a flute of bamboo, about 18 inches in length, closed at both extremities, with a hole near to each end, and four others in the middle. Into this instrument they blow with one nostril instead of the mouth, and, with only three notes, produce a pleasing simple music. The principal instrument is a kind of drum, formed of a log of wood, hollowed throughout with a long narrow aper ture, laid lengthwise upon two solid pieces, and beaten with bamboos of different lengths, so as to yield a sound accord ing to the length of the stick.
They have a variety of ceremonies to express their grief for the dead ; but they are of such a nature, that it is dilli cult to decide, whether they give greater proof of humanity or barbarity. When any of them dies, he is wrapped up in mats and cloth, and interred in burying places called Fiatookas. These are large inclosed spaces, having in the middle a lofty funeral pile, of a pyramidal form, around which the bodies of the chiefs, (for the inferior people have no particular spot of interment) are collected for many ge nerations, and arranged in a style of rude, but solemn dig nity. When the deceased is a person of distinction, some of his wives, or other relations, are strangled at the moment that his corpse is deposited ; and the nearer relatives, in every case, inflict upon themselves many bloody marks of sorrow. The most common way of testifying grief, is to strike their faces and breasts with their hands ; and many of them have scars on their cheek bones, resembling a circle produced by burning, occasioned by the frequent abration of the skin. At other times they strike a shark's tooth into their foreheads, beat their teeth with stones, and even thrust spears through their cheeks, or into their sides and thighs. Around the graves of their kings and princi pal chiefs, they often mangle one another in a kind of bac chanalian frenzy, of which the following account is given by one of the missionaries, who resided lately among them for several years. " The space round the tomb was, on this occasion, a palmstra for savage gladiators. Hundreds ran about it with ferocious emulation, to signalize their grief for the venerated chief, or their contempt of pain and death, by inflicting on themselves the most ghastly wounds, and exhibiting spectacles of the greatest horror. Thou sands, ere the period of mourning was over, fought with each other, and cut themselves with sharp instruments. It was an awful scene indeed ! Night after night we heard, for some weeks, the horrid sound of the conchshell rousing these deluded creatures to these dreadful rites of mourning for the dead ; and shrieks and clashing arms, and the rush ing and violence of the multitude, re-echoed round our abode, and rendered it a scene of continual horror and alarm."
The natives of the Friendly Islands seldom exceed in stature the common size of Europeans ; and are generally strongly built and well proportioned in their figure, their shoulders are broad, and their whole form conveys the idea of strength rather than of beauty. They have good eyes and teeth, and are free from that uncommon thickness about the lips, which is found among the inhabitants of the other islands in the Pacific. Their hair is thick, straight, and strong, though sometimes bushy and frizzled ; and its na tural colour is black, hut many of them stain it of a white, brown, put pie, or orange hue. There is observable among them a great variety of features, many Roman profiles and European faces ; and the only general likeness which cha racterizes them, is a fullness at the point of the nose. The general colour of their skin is a cast deeper than copper brown ; hut several of them have a true olive complexion. The greater part of the people have a dull hue, and a de gree of roughness on the surface of the body, especially where it is uncovered ; but, in the higher classes, there is a softer and clearer skin, with a tendency to corpulence. The women are distinguished from the men, less by their features than by their form. 'Sometimes, indeed, their countenances arc both delicate and expressive ; but they are mote remarkable For the elegance of their figures, which are usually well proportioned, and often perfect models of female beauty : the smallness and delicacy of their hands, seems to be their principal distinction. Both sexes are strong and active, and have a very graceful mien, and great firmness of step when they walk. Few natural defects or deformities arc to be seen among them ; and they appeared to all the navigators who have visited their coasts to be remarkably healthy. Though extremely at tentive to personal cleanliness, they arc most liable to cu taneous diseases, particularly to the terser or ring-worm, which leaves whitish serpentine marks upon their bodies. They are frequently affected also with tumours in the tes ticles, and swellings on their legs and arms ; but a species of venereal disease, which covers their bodies, and parti cularly the face, with broad ulcers, is the worst of their maladies. They have always evinced a very pacific-and friendly disposition towards strangers, and observed the greatest uprightness in their traffic ; but all of them, of whatever age or sex, are remarkably addicted to theft from their European visitors, and display the utmost dexterity, and sometimes murderous ferocity in the practice. When detected and punished, they strewed the most complete in sensibility, both to the shame and the bodily suffering in flicted on them. The utmost mildness and good nature is depicted on their countenances ; and they preserve a degree of self command in their conduct, very unusual in the savage state. They are, at the same time, chearful, open, and good humoured ; and the females particularly are unusually merry and talkative. They were described, in short, by their first European visitors, as a people not only adorned by all the gentler virtues, but also as possess ing many of the most estimable qualities of human nature ; but more recent information proves them to be capable of the most ferocious excesses, and overturns all the decla mations, founded upon their character, in favour of unci vilized society. In their wars, particularly, they present all the features of barbarians ; and the fiercest savages of America are not more merciless towards hostile tribes, than these Friendly islanders are to one another in their in testine commotions. One of the common modes of war fare among them is to " tootang," as they express it ; that is, to come upon the adverse party by surprise, to massacre in secret, to carry off plunder, to cut down the plantains and cocoa-trees, and to commit every species of devasta tion. Women, children, and prisoners, are murdered with out mercy ; and the dead bodies, after being exposed to the most brutal indignities, are roasted and devoured with vo racious satisfaction. Their cruelties are perpetrated with the most wanton levity ; and more than ordinary barbarism was witnessed by one of the English missionaries, who had adopted their customs, and joined in their expeditions. " Spectacles too shocking for humanity to contemplate, soon sickened my sight, and sunk my spirits : I beheld, with shaking horror, large stacks of human bodies piled up, by being laid transversely upon each other, a5 a 1110' mimental trophy of the victory. Proceeding a little far ther, a horrid spectacle almost froze my blood. It was a in a sitting posture, with folded arms, holding a child to her breast, as in the act of suckling it. Upon ap proaching them, I found both the mother and child cold and stiff with death. The enemy had killed them while in this posture, and indulged their savage revenge in amusing themselves with placing the dead bodies in this affecting attitude." In the course of the civil war to which this extract refers, several of the missionaries stationed in Tongataboo were cruelly butchered, while harmlessly looking upon a victorious party, who were passing their habitation ; and while the facts above related clearly spew how unadvisable it is to establish Christian teachers where their persons are exposed to lawless violence, they prove, at the same much the humanizing influence of their doctrines is needed, by who have been most highly extolled as the inoffensive children of nature. Sec Cook's Second Voyage round the World, 4to vol. i. p. 211; Cook's last Voyage round the World, vol. i. p. 141, 267, 285 ; Authentic Narrative of four years residence at Ton gataboo ; Wilson's Missionary Voyage in the Shin Duff. (9)