d that he was
not so. In the evening, this young man and another chief, who had also
paid us a visit, went away to the westward, but Tubourai Tamaide and his
wife returned to the awning in the skirts of the wood.

Our surgeon, Mr Monkhouse, having walked out this evening, reported that
he had seen the body of the man who had been shot at the tents, which he
said was wrapped in cloth, and placed on a kind of bier, supported by
stakes, under a roof that seemed to have been set up for the purpose:
That near it were deposited some instruments of war, and other things,
which he would particularly have examined but for the stench of the
body, which was intolerable. He said, that he saw also two more sheds of
the same kind, in one of which were the bones of a human body that had
lain till they were quite dry. We discovered afterwards, that this was
the way in which they usually disposed of their dead.

A kind of market now began to be kept just without the lines, and was
plentifully supplied with every thing but pork. Tubourai Tamaide was our
constant guest, imitating our manners, even to the using of a knife and
fork, which he did very handily.

As my curiosity was excited by Mr Monkhouse's account of the situation
of the man who had been shot, I took an opportunity to go with some
others to see it. I found the shed under which his body lay, close by
the house in which he resided when he was alive, some others being not
more than ten yards distant; it was about fifteen feet long, and eleven
broad, and of a proportionable height: One end was wholly open, and the
other end, and the two sides, were partly inclosed with a kind of wicker
work. The bier on which the corpse was deposited, was a frame of wood
like that in which the sea-beds, called cotts, are placed, with a matted
bottom, and supported by four posts, at the height of about five feet
from the ground. The body was covered first with a matt, and then with
white cloth; by the side of it lay a wooden mace, one of their weapons
of war, and near the head of it, which lay next to the close end of the
shed, lay two cocoa-nut shells, such as are sometimes used to carry
water in; at the other end a bunch of green leaves, with some dried
twigs, all tied together, were stuck in the ground, by which lay a stone
about as big as a cocoa-nut: Near these lay one of the young plantain
trees, which are used for emblems of peace, and close by it a stone axe.
At the open end of the shed