shall fill us with a pleasing melancholy; or our minds shall be seized with astonishment as we behold the roaring surf below, endeavoring but in vain to tear away the firm rocks.  Oh! how much happier shall we be thus employed, than when engaged in the troublesome and insipid affairs of life.”

Inasmuch as Mariner did not take notes on the spot, but relied on his memory after an absence of several years, it is to be feared that the above passage may not be unadulterated Tongan.  The rest of the song has a certain Biblical tone and style in a few of the sentences which arouse the suspicion (remember Ossian!) that a missionary may have edited, if not composed, this song.  However that may be, the remainder of it gives us several pretty glimpses of Tongan amorous customs and may therefore be cited, omitting a few irrelevant sentences: 

“Alas! how destructive is war!—­Behold! how it has rendered the land productive of weeds, and opened untimely graves for departed heroes!  Our chiefs can now no longer enjoy the sweet pleasure of wandering alone by moonlight in search of their mistresses:  but let us banish sorrow from our hearts:  since we are at war, we must think and act like the natives of Fiji, who first taught us this destructive art.  Let us therefore enjoy the present time, for to-morrow perhaps or the next day we may die.  We will dress ourselves with chi coola, and put bands of white tappa round our waists:  we will plait thick wreaths of jiale for our heads, and prepare strings of hooni for our necks, that their whiteness may show off the color of our skins.  Mark how the uncultivated spectators are profuse of their applause!—­But now the dance is over:  let us remain here to-night, and feast and be cheerful, and to-morrow we will depart for the Mooa.  How troublesome are the young men, begging for our wreaths of flowers, while they say in their flattery, ’See how charming these young girls look coining from Licoo!—­how beautiful are their skins, diffusing around a fragrance like the flowery precipice of Mataloco:’  Let us also visit Licoo; we will depart to-morrow.”

A CANNIBAL BARGAIN

This story intimates, what may be true, that the Fijians first taught the Tongans the art of war, and if the Tongans were not originally a warlike people, we would have in that significant fact alone an explanation of much of their superiority to other Pacific islanders.  The Fijians also appear to have taught them cannibalism, to which, however, they never became so addicted as their teachers.  Mariner (I., 110-111) tells a story of two girls who, in a time of scarcity, agreed to play a certain game with two young men on these conditions:  if the girls won, they were to divide a yam belonging to them and give half to the men; if the two men won they were still to have their share of the yam, but they were to go and kill a man and give half his body to the girls.  The men won and promptly proceeded to carry out their part of the contract.  Concealing themselves near a fortress, they soon saw a man who came to fill his cocoanut shells with water.  They rushed on him with their clubs, brought the body home at the risk of their lives, divided it and gave the young women the promised half.