Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/115

Rh it was now sufficiently evident, merely meant to imply that some of Mr. Mariner's countrymen lay dead where he pointed, and that they were going to roast or bake some hogs there.

From this place he was led towards the island of Foa. On the way they stopped at a hut, where they stripped him of his trowsers, notwithstanding his earnest solicitations to retain them; for he already felt the effect of the sun upon his back, and dreaded a total exposure to its heat. He was now led about bare-footed and without any thing to cover him, the heat blistering his skin in a most shocking manner. Every now and then some or other of the natives came up to him from motives of curiosity, felt his skin to compare it with their own, or likened it rather (as he afterwards understood) to the skin of a scraped hog, from its whiteness: from malice or rather wantonness they spat upon him, pushed him about, and threw sticks and cocoa-nut shells at him, so that his head was cut in several places. After having thus tantalized and led him about for a considerable length of time, as fast as the soreness of his feet would permit him to walk, a woman happening to pass near at hand, from motives of compassion gave him an apron made of the leaves of the chee-tree, with which he was permitted to cover himself. Coming at length to a hut, they entered and sat