appropriated to their chiefs, and used on ceremonious occasions, consisting of a feathered cloak and helmet, which, in point of beauty and magnificence, is perhaps nearly equal to that of any nation in the world.  As this dress has been already described with great accuracy and minuteness, I have only to add, that these cloaks are made of different lengths, in proportion to the rank of the wearer, some of them reaching no lower than the middle, others trailing on the ground.  The inferior chiefs have also a short cloak, resembling the former, made of the long tail-feathers of the cock, the tropic and man-of-war birds, with a broad border of the small red and yellow feathers, and a collar of the same.  Others again are made of feathers entirely white, with variegated borders.  The helmet has a strong lining of wicker-work, capable of breaking the blow of any warlike instrument, and seems evidently designed for that purpose.

These feathered dresses seemed to be exceedingly scarce, appropriated to persons of the highest rank, and worn by the men only.  During the whole time we lay in Karakakooa Bay, we never saw them used but on three occasions; in the curious ceremony of Terreeoboo’s first visit to the ships; by some chiefs, who were seen among the crowd on shore when Captain Cook was killed, and afterward when Eappo brought his bones to us.

The exact resemblance between this habit, and the cloak and helmet formerly worn by the Spaniards, was too striking not to excite our curiosity to enquire, whether there were any probable grounds for supposing it to have been borrowed from them.  After exerting every means in our power of obtaining information on this subject, we found that they had no immediate knowledge of any other nation whatever, nor any tradition remaining among them of these islands having been ever visited before by such ships as ours.  But, notwithstanding the result of these enquiries, the uncommon form of this habit appears to me a sufficient proof of its European origin, especially when added to another circumstance, that it is a singular deviation from the general resemblance in dress, which prevails amongst all the branches of this tribe, dispersed through the South Sea.  We were driven indeed, by this conclusion, to a supposition of the shipwreck of some Buccaneer, or Spanish ship, in the neighbourhood of these islands.  But when it is recollected, that the course of the Spanish trade from Acapulco to the Manillas is but a few degrees to the southward of the Sandwich Islands in their passage out, and to the northward on their return, this supposition will not appear in the least improbable.[9]