to partake with them of the food they happen to have.”  He tells us, however, that in their domestic way of living, the sexes usually associate.  Of the female Charaibes, Mr Edwards, quoting Labat, says, that they were not allowed the privilege of eating in presence of their husbands.  And Rochon, in his account of Madagascar, tells us something to the same purport of the women of that island.  It would be easy to multiply instances of the custom which Hawkesworth thinks to be peculiar to the Otaheitans.—­E.]

After meals, and in the heat of the day, the middle-aged people of the better sort generally sleep; they are indeed extremely indolent, and sleeping and eating is almost all that they do.  Those that are older are less drowsy, and the boys and girls are kept awake by the natural activity and sprightliness of their age.

Their amusements have occasionally been mentioned in my account of the incidents that happened during our residence in this island, particularly music, dancing, wrestling, and shooting with the bow; they also sometimes vie with each other in throwing a lance.  As shooting is not at a mark, but for distance; throwing the lance is not for distance, but at a mark:  The weapon is about nine feet long, the mark is the hole of a plantain, and the distance about twenty yards.

Their only musical instruments are flutes and drums; the flutes are made of a hollow bamboo about a foot long, and, as has been observed before, have only two stops, and consequently but four notes, out of which they seem hitherto to have formed but one tune; to these stops they apply the fore-finger of the left hand and the middle-finger of the right.

The drum is made of a hollow block of wood, of a Cylindrical form, solid at one end, and covered at the other with shark’s skin:  These they beat not with sticks, but their hands; and they know how to tune two drums of different notes into concord.  They have also an expedient to bring the flutes that play together into unison, which is to roll up a leaf so as to slip over the end of the shortest, like our sliding tubes for telescopes, which they move up or down till the purpose is answered, of which they seem to judge by their ear with great nicety.

To these instruments they sing; and, as I have observed before, their songs are often extempore:  They call every two verses or couplet a song, Pehay; they are generally, though not always, in rhyme; and when pronounced by the natives, we could discover that they were metre.  Mr Banks took great pains to write down some of them which were made upon our arrival, as nearly as he could express their sounds by combinations of our letters; but when we read them, not having their accent, we could scarcely make them either metre or rhyme.  The reader will easily perceive that they are of very different structure.

   Tede pahai de parow-a
   Ha maru no mina.

   E pahah Tayo malama tai ya
   No Tabane tonatou whannomi ya.