Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/170

112 The Gothic arch of which it consisted was supported on one side by twenty-six, and on the other by thirty pillars, or rather clumsy thick posts of about two feet high and one thick; most of these were carved with the heads of men, boys, or other devices, as the rough fancy and rougher workmanship of these stone-hatchet-furnished gentry suggested and executed. The flats were filled with very fine bread-fruit trees and an infinite number of cocoanuts, upon which latter the inhabitants seem to depend much more than those of Otahite; we saw, however, large spaces occupied by lagoons and salt swamps, upon which neither bread-fruit nor cocoanut would thrive.

18th. This morning we went to take a further view of a building which we had seen yesterday, and admired a good deal, taking with us Tupia's boy Tayeto (he himself was too much engaged with his friends to have time to accompany us). The boy told us that the building was called Ewharre no Eatua, or the house of the god, but could not explain at all the use of it. It consisted of a chest whose lid was nicely sewed on, and very neatly thatched over with palm-nut leaves; the whole was fixed on two poles by little arches of very neatly carved wood. These poles seemed to be used in carrying it from place to place, though when we saw it, it was supported upon two posts. One end of the chest was open, with a round hole within a square one; this was yesterday stopped up with a piece of cloth, which, lest I should offend the people, I left untouched; but to-day the cloth, and probably the contents of the chest, were removed, as there was nothing at all in it.

Trade to-day does not go on with any spirit; the people, when anything is offered them, will not rely on their own judgment, but take the opinion of twenty or thirty people about them, a proceeding which takes up much time.

19th. This morning trade was rather better; we obtained three very large hogs and some pigs by producing hatchets, which had not been before given, and which we had hoped to have had no occasion for in an island not hitherto seen by Europeans.