Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/273

Rh which lasted about three quarters of an hour; when they again took shelter within their walls. In the first engagement the enemy had forty men killed, and Finow only two: in the last attack they had only one man killed, and Finow none, though several died afterwards of their wounds; but this was only an engagement with arrows and spears, which they are very dexterous in avoiding: clubs were not used; for the enemy were upon a higher ground, and it would not have been prudent to have attacked them with the club, and risk the loss of their former advantages; and the enemy were too much discouraged to venture into the plain for this purpose. The day was so rainy that no muskets could be well used. In the last affair Mr. Mariner received an arrow in his foot, which passed quite through the broadest part of it: luckily it was not a bearded arrow; but the wound was, nevertheless, a very bad one; for the weapon being made of a short, splintering wood, it broke in, and consequently he was afterwards disabled for several months; for the Tonga surgeons have not the best instruments in the world, and the pieces of wood they took out from time to time, by no better means than cutting down upon them with sharp shells, or bamboo; which rendered the affair very tedious and painful.