hooting is
not at a mark, but for distance; throwing the lance is not for distance,
but at a mark: The weapon is about nine feet long, the mark is the hole
of a plantain, and the distance about twenty yards.

Their only musical instruments are flutes and drums; the flutes are
made of a hollow bamboo about a foot long, and, as has been observed
before, have only two stops, and consequently but four notes, out of
which they seem hitherto to have formed but one tune; to these stops
they apply the fore-finger of the left hand and the middle-finger of the
right.

The drum is made of a hollow block of wood, of a Cylindrical form, solid
at one end, and covered at the other with shark's skin: These they beat
not with sticks, but their hands; and they know how to tune two drums of
different notes into concord. They have also an expedient to bring the
flutes that play together into unison, which is to roll up a leaf so as
to slip over the end of the shortest, like our sliding tubes for
telescopes, which they move up or down till the purpose is answered, of
which they seem to judge by their ear with great nicety.

To these instruments they sing; and, as I have observed before, their
songs are often extempore: They call every two verses or couplet a song,
_Pehay_; they are generally, though not always, in rhyme; and when
pronounced by the natives, we could discover that they were metre. Mr
Banks took great pains to write down some of them which were made upon
our arrival, as nearly as he could express their sounds by combinations
of our letters; but when we read them, not having their accent, we could
scarcely make them either metre or rhyme. The reader will easily
perceive that they are of very different structure.

Tede pahai de parow-a
Ha maru no mina.

E pahah Tayo malama tai ya
No Tabane tonatou whannomi ya.

E Turai eattu terara patee whannua toai
Ino o maio Pretane to whennuaia no Tute.

Of these verses our knowledge of the language is too imperfect to
attempt a translation. They frequently amuse themselves by singing such
couplets as these when they are alone, or with their families,
especially after it is dark; for though they need no fires, they are not
without the comfort of artificial light between sunset and bed-time.
Their candles are made of the kernels of a kind of oily nut, which they
stick one over another upon a skewer that is thrust through the middle
of them; the upper one being ligh