eeping a sharp look out upon
our cables, and continually spurring the centinels to be careful in their
duty. The prisoners' wives visited the ship daily and brought their
children, who were permitted to be carried to their unhappy fathers. To
see the poor captives in irons, weeping over their tender offspring, was
too moving a scene for any feeling heart. Their wives brought them ample
supplies of every delicacy that the country afforded while we lay there,
and behaved with the greatest fidelity and affection to them.

Next day the king, his two queens, and retinue, came on board to pay us a
formal visit, preceded by a band of music. The ladies had about sixty or
seventy yards of Otaheitee cloth wrapt round them, and were so bulky and
unwieldy with it, they were obliged to be hoisted on board like horn
cattle: hogs, cocoa-nuts, bananas, a rich sort of peach, and a variety of
ready dressed puddings and victuals, composed their present to the
Captain.

As soon as they were on board, the Captain debarassoit the ladies, by
rolling their linen round his middle; an indispensable ceremony here in
receiving a present of cloth: and Medua, wife to Oripai, the king's
brother, took a great liking to the Captain's laced coat, which he
immediately put on her with much gallantry; and that beautiful princess
seemed much elated with her new finery. I cannot ommit a circumstance of
this lady's attachment to dress. There was a custom which had prevailed
for a long time, to present the god with all red feathers that could be
procured; but thinking she would become red feathers full as well as his
godship, immediately employed all her domestics making them up into fly
flaps, and other personal ornaments, to prevent the altar making a
monopoly of all the good things, in this, as well as in other countries.

A grand Haeva was next day ordered for our entertainment ashore, on Point
Venus, and on our landing we were preceded by a band of music, and led to
where the king and his levee were in waiting to receive us. The course
was soon cleared by the chiefs, and the entertainment began by two men,
who vied with each other in filthy lascivious attitudes, and frightful
distortions of their mouths. These having performed their part, two
ladies, pretty fancifully dressed, as described in Captain Cook's
Voyages, were introduced after a little ceremony. Something resembling a
turkey-cock's tail, and stuck on their rumps in a fan kind of fashion,
abou