a foot high, made of a coarse sedge-like plant, the upper part of which, and the edges, are ornamented with beautiful red feathers, and to the point, or lower part, is fixed a gourd-shell larger than the fist.  Into this is put something to rattle, which is done by holding the instrument by the small part, and shaking or rather moving it from place to place briskly, either to different sides or backward and forward just before the face, striking the breast with the other hand at the same time.  The other musical instrument (if either of them deserve that name) was a hollow vessel of wood, like a platter, combined with the use of two sticks, on which one of our gentlemen saw a man performing.  He held one of the sticks, about two feet long, as we do a fiddle with one hand, and struck it with the other, which was smaller, and resembled a drum-stick, in a quicker or slower measure; at the same time beating with his foot upon the hollow vessel that lay inverted upon the ground, and thus producing a tune that was by no means disagreeable.  This music was accompanied by the vocal performance of some women, whose song had a pleasing and tender effect.

We observed great numbers of small polished rods, about four or five feet long, somewhat thicker than the rammer of a musket, with a tuft of long white dog’s hair fixed on the small end.  These are probably used in their diversions.  We saw a person take one of them in his hand, and holding it up, give a smart stroke, till he brought it into an horizontal position, striking with the foot on the same side upon the ground, and with his other hand beating his breast at the same time.  They play at bowls with pieces of whetstone mentioned before, of about a pound weight, shaped somewhat like a small cheese, but rounded at the sides and edges, which are very nicely polished; and they have other bowls of the same sort, made of a heavy reddish, brown clay, neatly glazed over with a composition of the same colour, or of a coarse dark-grey slate.  They also use, in the manner that we throw quoits, small flat rounded pieces of the writing slate of the diameter of the bowls, but scarcely a quarter of an inch thick, also well polished.  From these circumstances, one would be induced to think that their games are rather trials of skill than of strength.

In every thing manufactured by these people, there appears to be an uncommon degree of neatness and ingenuity.  Their cloth, which is the principal manufacture, is made from the morus papyrifera; and doubtless in the same manner as at Otaheite and Tongataboo; for we bought some of the grooved sticks with which it is beaten.  Its texture, however, though thicker, is rather inferior to that of the cloth of either of the other places; but in colouring or staining it, the people of Atooi display a superiority of taste, by the endless variation of figures which they execute.  One would suppose, on seeing a number of their pieces, that they had borrowed their patterns from some mercer’s