ute, producing four notes, and blown with the nostrils;
the other, a drum, made of the hollow trunk of a tree; but the
accompanying songs, usually extempore poems, were pretty, and showed the
delicacy of their ear. The girls excelled in the dance; the married
women were forbidden to take part in it, and the men never did. The
dancers executed a species of ballet, and, according to the judgment of
travellers, they might with little trouble become capable of performing
on our theatres. The English dances they soon learnt, and in the
well-known hornpipe, especially, displayed much grace.

The mock-fights were of course in imitation of their serious warfare,
and they parried with admirable dexterity the blow of a club or thrust
of a lance, by which otherwise they must have been severely wounded. The
dramatic pieces were performed by both sexes, and sometimes by persons
of the highest quality. They were of a mixed character, serious, and
comic, but for want of a thorough acquaintance with the language, they
have been very imperfectly described to us. Thus, oppressed by no care,
burdened by no toil, tormented by no passion, seldom visited by
sickness, their wants easily satisfied, and their pleasures often
recurring, the Tahaitians passed a life of enjoyment under the
magnificent sky of the tropics, and amid scenes worthy of Paradise.

On the 12th of March, a beautiful bright morning, we had the pleasure to
perceive Tahaiti before us, like a light cloud in the clear horizon. All
that we had read of its loveliness now rose to our remembrance,
heightened by the vivid colouring of the imagination; but seventy miles
were yet to be traversed ere we could tread the land of expectation, and
a very slow progress, occasioned by a flagging wind, tried our patience.
We continued, however, to advance, and the light cloud became larger,
and denser, and higher, soon assuming the appearance of three separate
hills belonging to different islands; the highest point, eight thousand
feet above the level of the sea, is the summit of a mountain,
distinguished from the others by its conical form.

We next recognized the large rugged masses of rock of the interior,
which have a most romantic appearance. The country gradually unfolded
all its charms; the luxuriant growth of the trees, even to the
mountains' tops, reminded us of the scenery of Brazil, and the
picturesque valleys, with their thickets of bread-fruit, orange, and
cocoa-trees, their cu