Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/379

Rh THE TONGA ISLANDS. 313 they were greatly surprised at the sight of so large a canoe, and considered this chief and his men as hotooas (gods) or superior beings, and would not suffer them to land, till they had spread on the ground a large roll of gnatoo, which extended about fifty yards, reaching from the shore to the house prepared for them. At this island Cow iMooala remained but a short time : during his stay, however, the natives treated him with very great respect, and took him to see some bones which were supposed to have belonged once to an immense giant ; about whom they relate a marvellous account, which is current at Tonga as well as at Lotooma. At a period before men of common stature lived at Tonga, tv/o enormous giants resided there, who happening on some occasion to of- fend their god, he punished them by causing a scarcity on all the Tonga islands, which obliged them to go and seek food elsewhere. As they were vastly above the ordinary size of the sons of men now-a-days, they were-^able, with the greatest imaginable ease, to stride from one island to another, provided the distance was not more than about a couple of miles ; at all events their stature enabled them to wade through the sea without danger, the water in general not coming higher than their knees, and in the deepest places not higher than their hips.