hed to Tongataboo with the news; in consequence of
which, this chief immediately passed over to Annamooka. The officer on
shore informed me, that when he first arrived, all the natives were
ordered out to meet him, and paid their obeisance by bowing their heads
as low as his feet, the soles of which they also touched with each hand,
first with the palm, and then with the back part. There could be little
room to suspect that a person, received with so much respect, could be
any thing less than the king.

In the afternoon, I went to pay this great man a visit, having first
received a present of two fish from him, brought on board by one of his
servants. As soon as I landed, he came up to me. He appeared to be about
thirty years of age, tall, but thin, and had more of the European
features, than any I had yet seen here. When the first salutation was
over, I asked if he was the king. For, notwithstanding what I had been
told, finding he was not the man whom I remembered to have seen under
that character during my former voyage, I began to entertain doubts.
Taipa officially answered for him, and enumerated no less than one
hundred and fifty-three islands, of which, he said, Feenou was the
sovereign. After a short stay, our new visitor, and five, or six of his
attendants, accompanied me on board. I gave suitable presents to them
all, and entertained them in such a manner, as I thought would be most
agreeable.

In the evening, I attended them on shore in my boat, into which the
chief ordered three hogs to be put, as a return for the presents he had
received from me. I was now informed of an accident which had just
happened, the relation of which will convey some idea of the extent of
the authority exercised here over the common people. While Feenou was on
board my ship, an inferior chief, for what reason our people on shore
did not know, ordered all the natives to retire from the post we
occupied. Some of them having ventured to return, he took up a large
stick, and beat them most unmercifully. He struck one man on the side of
the face, with so much violence, that the blood gushed out of his mouth
and nostrils; and, after lying some time motionless, he was, at last,
removed from the place, in convulsions. The person who had inflicted the
blow, being told that he had killed the man, only laughed at it; and, it
was evident, that he was not in the least sorry for what had happened.
We heard, afterward, that the poor sufferer rec