the chief priest and his son received the captain.  Scarcely were the ships anchored, when a priest went on board, and decorating Cook with a red cloth, such as adorned their deities, offered him a pig in the manner of a sacrifice, and pronounced a long harangue.  They chanted hymns before him, and priests, bearing wands, preceded him on his landing, while the in habitants prostrated themselves on the ground, as he walked from the beach to the village.”

GEORGE.  “But if they held him in such reverence, how was it they killed him?”

MR. WILTON.  “His own imprudence brought about his melancholy end.  Some time after his arrival, it appears, that one of his smaller boats was stolen by some of the natives, for the sake of the nails in her, and was broken up the very night it was stolen.  Captain Cook, angry at losing his boat, attempted to get the king on board his ship, to confine him there, until the boat should be restored.  This caused a tumult, and in the tumult, Captain Cook was slain.  There certainly was no malice in the case,—­not the slightest intention of injuring him; and his body was treated in the same manner as those of their own chiefs, the bones being assigned to different Eries (chiefs), who, either from affection, or from an idea of good luck attending them, desired to preserve them.  Long after Captain Cook’s death, the natives believed he would re-appear, and perhaps punish them for their breach of hospitality.”

MR. BARRAUD.  “They are a most interesting people; and, to prove to you how they have advanced in civilization, I will give you two instances of their mode of living and taking their meals.  Forty years ago, the Rev. Mr. Stewart, being then on a mission, visited a chief, and, when he entered the apartment, one of his queens was seated on the ground a la Turc, with a large wooden tray in her lap.  Upon this a monstrous cuttle-fish had just been placed, fresh from the sea, and in all its life and vigor.  The queen had taken it up with both hands, and brought its body to her mouth, and, by a single application of her teeth, the black blood with which it was filled gushed over her face and neck, while the long sucking arms of the fish, in the convulsive paroxysm of the operation, were twisting and writhing about her head, like the snaky hairs of a Medusa.  Occupied as both hands were, she could only give her visitor a nod.  Mr. Stewart remarks, ’It was the first time I had seen her Majesty, and I soon took my departure, leaving her, as I found her, in the full enjoyment of her luxurious luncheon.’  Now,—­observe the contrast.  In 1841, Sir George Simpson and friends visited a chief.  They were received in an immense apartment:  several white persons were there to meet them:  all the rules of etiquette were observed on going to table.  The chiefs were all handsomely attired, their clothes fitting to a hair’s breadth, for they had imported a tailor from England to make them.  The dining-room was