returned to their places.  As the pole-bearers ran off, they gave the challenge that is usual here in wrestling; and, not long after, a number of stout fellows came from the same quarter, repeating the challenge as they advanced.  These were opposed by a party who came from the opposite side almost at the same instant.  The two parties paraded about the area for a few minutes, and then retired, each to their own side.  After this, there were wrestling and boxing-matches for about half an hour.  Then two men seated themselves before the prince, and made speeches, addressed, as I thought, entirely to him.  With this the solemnity ended, and the whole assembly broke up.

I now went and examined the several baskets which had been presented; a curiosity that I was not allowed before to indulge, because every thing was then taboo.  But the solemnity being now over, they became simply what I found them to be, empty baskets.  So that, whatever they were supposed to contain, was emblematically represented.  And so, indeed, was every other thing which had been brought in procession, except the fish.

We endeavoured in vain to find out the meaning, not only of the ceremony in general, which is called Natche, but of its different parts.  We seldom got any other answer to our enquiries, but taboo, a word which, I have before observed, is applied to many other things.  But as the prince was evidently the principal person concerned in it, and as we had been told by the king ten days before the celebration of the Natche, that the people would bring in yams for him and his son to eat together, and as he even described some part of the ceremony, we concluded, from what he had then said, and from what we now saw, that an oath of allegiance, if I may so express myself, or solemn promise, was on this occasion made to the prince, as the immediate successor to the regal dignity, to stand by him, and to furnish him with the several articles that were here emblematically represented.  This seems the more probable, as all the principal people of the island, whom we had ever seen, assisted in the processions.  But, be this as it may, the whole was conducted with a great deal of mysterious solemnity; and that there was a mixture of religion in the institution was evident, not only from the place where it was performed, but from the manner of performing it.  Our dress and deportment had never been called in question upon any former occasion whatever.  Now, it was expected that we should be uncovered as low as the waist; that our hair should be loose, and flowing over our shoulders; that we should, like themselves, sit cross-legged; and, at times, in the most humble posture, with down-cast eyes, and hands locked together; all which requisites were most devoutly observed by the whole assembly.  And, lastly, every one was excluded from the solemnity; but the principal people, and those who assisted in the celebration.  All these circumstances were to me a sufficient testimony, that, upon this occasion, they consider themselves as acting under the immediate inspection of a Supreme Being;