. Boba and Ota
are the two chiefs; the latter I have not seen; Boba is a stout, well-made
young man; and we were told is, after Opoony's death, to marry his
daughter, by which marriage he will be vested with the same regal authority
as Opoony has now; so that it should seem, though a woman may be vested
with regal dignity, she cannot have regal power. I cannot find that Opoony
has got any thing to himself by the conquest of these isles, any farther
than providing for his nobles, who have seized on best part of the lands.
He seems to have no demand on them for any of the many articles they have
had from us. Oedidee has several times enumerated to me all the axes,
nails, &c. which Opoony is possessed of, which hardly amount to as many as
he had from me when I saw him in 1769. Old as this famous man is, he seems
not to spend his last days in indolence. When we first arrived here, he was
at Maurana; soon after he returned to Bolabola; and we were now told, he
was gone to Tubi.

I shall conclude this account of these islands, with some observations on
the watch which Mr Wales hath communicated to me. At our arrival in Matavai
Bay in Otaheite, the longitude pointed out by the watch was 2 deg. 8' 38" 1/2 too
far to the west; that is, it had gained, since our leaving Queen
Charlotte's Sound, of its then rate of going, 8' 34" 1/2. This was in about
five months, or rather more, during which time it had passed through the
extremes of cold and heat. It was judged that half this error arose after
we left Easter Island; by which it appeared that it went better in the cold
than in the hot climates.

[1] "The man who acted the part of the woman in labour went through
the gestures which the Greeks were wont to admire in the groves of
Venus-Ariadne, near Amathus, where the same ceremony was acted on the
second day of the month Gorpioeus, in memory of Ariadne, who died in
child-bed. Thus it appears that there is scarcely a practice, though
ever so ridiculous, existing in any corner of the world, that has not
been hit upon by the extravagant fancy of men in some other region. A
tall, stout fellow, dressed in cloth, personated the new-born infant
in such a ludicrous style, that we could not refuse joining in the
plaudits which his countrymen bestowed on him. Anatomists and midwives
would have been surprised to observe, that this overgrown babe had
every necessary character of a child newly b