Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/147

Rh that there were at least twelve or thirteen different garrisoned places upon the island; each, in a state of warfare with all the rest, was determined to maintain its claims as long as it had strength to do so. Thus was the island of Tonga, to which war had hitherto been a stranger, torn by civil strife, and at times given up a prey to famine, a situation worse perhaps than that under the tyranny of Toogoo Ahoo. Besides their domestic troubles, every year they were disturbed by attacks from Finow, who made it his annual custom to make a descent upon one or other of their fortresses, and sometimes upon several of them in the same season; but they were all so well fortified and intrenched, that their enemy, however powerful, consisting of the Hapai people, under the command of Finow, and the Vavaoo people, under that of Toobó Nuha, had never succeeded, at the time of Mr. Mariner's first arrival, in taking or destroying a single fort; that is to say, during the space of seven or eight years.

This piece of history Mr. Mariner heard not only from Finow, but also from Toobo Nuha, Tooitonga, and a number of other chiefs, as well also, though in detached portions, from several of the inhabitants of the island of Tonga, and has found an uniform agreement and