situation eight months before, was very astonishing to us.  It was with the utmost difficulty that we had been able to purchase a few hogs during our first stay, having been obliged to look upon it as a great favour, when the king or chief parted with one of these animals.  At present our decks were so crowded with them, that we were obliged to make a hog-stye on shore.  We concluded, therefore, that they were now entirely recovered from the blow which they had received in their late unfortunate war with the lesser peninsula, and of which they still felt the bad effects at our visit in August 1773.”—­G.F.

[6] So much curious information is given in the following passage, that, long as it is, there are few readers, it is believed, who would willingly dispense with it.  “All our former ideas of the power and affluence of this island were so greatly surpassed by this magnificent scene, that we were perfectly left in admiration.  We counted no less than one hundred and fifty-nine war-canoes, from fifty to ninety feet long betwixt stem and stern.  All these were double, that is, two joined together, side by side, by fifteen or eighteen strong transverse timbers, which sometimes projected a great way beyond both the hulls, being from twelve to four-and-twenty feet in length, and about three feet and a half asunder.  When they are so long, they make a platform fifty, sixty, or seventy feet in length.  On the outside of each canoe there are, in that case, two or three longitudinal spars, and between the two connected canoes, one spar is fixed to the transverse beams.  The heads and sterns were raised several feet out of the water, particularly the latter, which stood up like long beaks, sometimes near twenty feet high, and were cut into various shapes; a white piece of cloth was commonly fixed between the two beaks of each double canoe, in lieu of an ensign, and the wind swelled it out like a sail.  Some had likewise a striped cloth, with various red chequers, which were the marks of the divisions under different commanders.  At the head there was a tall pillar of carved-work, on the top of which stood the figure of a man, or rather of an urchin, whose face was commonly shaded by a board like a bonnet, and sometimes painted red with ochre.  These pillars were generally covered with branches of black feathers, and long streamers of feathers hung from them.  The gunwale of the canoes was commonly two or three feet above the water, but not always formed in the same manner; for some had flat bottoms, and sides nearly perpendicular upon them, whilst others were bow- sided, with a sharp keel.  A fighting stage was erected towards the head of the boat, and rested on pillars from four to six feet high, generally ornamented with carving.  This stage extended beyond the whole breadth of the double canoe, and was from twenty to twenty-four feet long, and about eight or ten feet wide.  The rowers sat in the canoe, or under the fighting-stage