Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/358

292 and the toil and trouble which it necessarily occasions. In the estimation of the romantic, however, this trouble is amply repaid by the rich and extensive scenery on every side, whilst the murmuring of the waves, breaking upon the rocks below, soothes the mind with a pleas- ing melancholy easier to be conceived than de- scribed. The effect which this works upon the minds of the natives will be more easily under- stood when we see a sample of their descriptive songs, which in language, like that of Ossian, are plaintive and pathetic. In the first place, hovever, it is necessary to state a few particu- lars relative to this romantic and diversified ^pot, thaf certain passages of the ensuing song may be better understood. On the right of the wood of tammioo trees there is another wood, consisting almost wholly of toil trees : here the natives frequently resort to rinse themselves with the fresh water found in the hollows, between the junctions of the large branches or limbs that come off imme- diately from the trunk, after having bathed • themselves in the sea : for the salt watei;, with- out using such rinsing afterwards, is apt to produce, in hot climates, a cutaneous eruption: besides which, the fresh water washing prevents that uneasy sensation of heat in the skin, upon a little exertion, attended with a clamminess ;