Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/501

Rh with his men to the canoes, in which the following morning he departed for Hapai.

Toobo Toa was greatly pleased with the appearance of the garrison, declaring that he had never seen any thing so warlike and formidable, not even at the Fiji islands, where he had lived several years. Finow had indeed given the strictest orders to make every thing appear in as good a state as possible, producing a tasteful display of clubs, spears, and arrows, arranged against the houses, with wreaths of flowers and certain warlike decorations. Upon the whole, when the size and strength of the place, with its situation, was taken into consideration, it was, perhaps, by far the most formidable fortification that had ever been established in any of those clusters of islands, in the midst of the southern ocean.

About a month after the departure of Toobó Toa, during which time nothing particular occurred, a fisherman from one of the neighbouring islands brought word that a small canoe had been seen coming in a direction from Hapai. In a short time the canoe itself arrived, bringing one of Finow's principal warriors, Lolo Hea Cow Keifoo, and his two brothers, young lads, who had been at the Hapai islands in consequence of the illness of their father, who had resided there, but was since