Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/118

52 On getting up the next morning, he was much surprised at perceiving every body with their heads shaved: a practice which is always adopted at the burial of Tooitonga, a great personage hereafter to be described, whose funeral was performed that day.

In the course of the morning Finow took him on board the ship, where he was much gratified in meeting several of the crew, who had been ordered on board to bring the ship close in shore. The king's orders being understood, they cut the cables, and worked her in shore, through a very narrow passage, so full of rocks and shoals, that, untried, it would have been considered unnavigable. Through the medium of Tooi Tool the king had been previously informed, that unless his men (which were about 400 in number) were to sit down, and remain perfectly quiet, it would be impossible to work the ship, the Englishmen being only about fourteen in number. The moment Finow had given orders to his men, he was most implicitly obeyed; they sat down, and not a word was spoken, nor the least perceptible noise made by them during the whole time, no more than if none of them were on board. The ship was brought within half a cable's length of the shore, through the narrow passage just mentioned, and run aground according to Finow's orders.