[Footnote 1:  See Captain Wallis’s account of the same operation performed on himself, and his first lieutenant, in this Collection, vol. xii. p. 197.]

In the morning of the 25th, Otoo, Mr King, and Omai, returned from Attahooroo; and Mr King gave me the following account of what he had seen: 

“Soon after you left me, a second messenger came from Towha to Otoo, with a plantain-tree.  It was sun-set when we embarked in a canoe and left Oparre.  About nine o’clock we landed at Tettaha, at that extremity which joins to Attahooroo.  Before we landed, the people called to us from the shore; probably, to tell us that Towha was there.  The meeting of Otoo and this chief, I expected, would afford some incident worthy of observation.  Otoo, and his attendants, went and seated themselves on the beach, close to the canoe in which Towha was.  He was then asleep; but his servants having awakened him, and mentioning Otoo’s name, immediately a plantain-tree and a dog were laid at Otoo’s feet; and many of Towha’s people came and talked with him, as I conceived, about their expedition to Eimeo.  After I had, for some time, remained seated close to Otoo, Towha neither stirring from his canoe, nor holding any conversation with us, I went to him.  He asked me if Toote was angry with him.  I answered, No:  that he was his taio; and that he had ordered me to go to Attahooroo to tell him so.  Omai now had a long conversation with this chief; but I could gather no information of any kind from him.  On my returning to Otoo, he seemed desirous that I should go to eat, and then to sleep.  Accordingly, Omai and I left him.  On questioning Omai, he said, the reason of Towha’s not stirring from his canoe, was his being lame; but that, presently, Otoo and he would converse together in private.  This seemed true; for in a little time, those we left with Otoo came to us; and, about ten minutes after, Otoo himself arrived, and we all went to sleep in his canoe.

“The next morning, the ava was in great plenty.  One man drank so much that he lost his senses.  I should have supposed him to be in a fit, from the convulsions that agitated him.  Two men held him, and kept plucking off his hair by the roots.  I left this spectacle to see another that was more affecting.  This was the meeting of Towha and his wife, and a young girl, whom I understood to be his daughter.  After the ceremony of cutting their heads, and discharging a tolerable quantity of blood and tears, they washed, embraced the chief, and seemed unconcerned.  But the young girl’s sufferings were not yet come to an end.  Terridiri[2] arrived; and she went, with great composure, to repeat the same ceremonies to him, which she had just performed on meeting her father.  Towha had brought a large war-canoe from Eimeo.  I enquired if he had killed the people belonging to her; and was told, that there was no man in her when she was captured.

[Footnote 2:  Terridiri was Oberea’s son.  See an account of the royal family of Otaheite, in this Collection, vol. xii. p. 482.]