n Atooi; especially as we met
with no utensil there that could be applied to the purpose of stewing
or boiling. The only artificial dish we met with was a _taro_ pudding,
which, though a disagreeable mess from its sourness, was greedily
devoured by the natives. They eat off a kind of wooden plates or
trenchers; and the women, as far as we could judge from one instance,
if restrained from feeding at the same dish with the men, as at
Otaheite, are at least permitted to eat in the same place near them.

Their amusements seem pretty various; for during our short
stay, several were discovered. The dances at which they used the
feathered-cloaks and caps were not seen; but from the motions which
they made with their hands on other occasions, when they sung, we
could form some judgment that they are, in some degree at least,
similar to those we had met with at the southern islands, though not
executed so skilfully. Neither had they amongst them either flutes or
reeds, and the only two musical instruments which we observed were
of an exceedingly rude kind. One of them does not produce a melody
exceeding that of a child's rattle. It consists of what may be called
a conic cap inverted, but scarcely hollowed at the base above a foot
high, made of a coarse sedge-like plant, the upper part of which,
and the edges, are ornamented with beautiful red feathers, and to the
point, or lower part, is fixed a gourd-shell larger than the fist.
Into this is put something to rattle, which is done by holding the
instrument by the small part, and shaking or rather moving it from
place to place briskly, either to different sides or backward and
forward just before the face, striking the breast with the other hand
at the same time. The other musical instrument (if either of them
deserve that name) was a hollow vessel of wood, like a platter,
combined with the use of two sticks, on which one of our gentlemen saw
a man performing. He held one of the sticks, about two feet long, as
we do a fiddle with one hand, and struck it with the other, which was
smaller, and resembled a drum-stick, in a quicker or slower measure;
at the same time beating with his foot upon the hollow vessel that
lay inverted upon the ground, and thus producing a tune that was by
no means disagreeable. This music was accompanied by the vocal
performance of some women, whose song had a pleasing and tender
effect.

We observed great numbers of small polished rods, about four or fiv