Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/251

Rh sation with one of their priests; they seemed to agree very well in their notions of religion, only Tupia was much more learned than the other, and all his discourse was received with much attention. He asked them in the course of his conversation many questions, among the rest whether or no they really ate men, which he was very loth to believe; they answered in the affirmative, saying that they ate the bodies only of those of their enemies who were killed in war.

Among other knicknacks, Dr. Solander bought a boy's top, which resembled those our boys play with in England, and which they made signs was to be whipped in the same manner.

28th. On an island called Jubolai we saw the largest canoe which we had met with; her length was 68½ feet, her breadth 5 feet, and her height 3 feet 6 inches. She was built with a sharp bottom, made in three pieces of trunks of trees hollowed out, the middlemost of which was much longer than either of the other two; their gunnel planks were in one piece 62 feet 2 inches in length, carved prettily enough in bas-relief; the head also was richly carved in their fashion. We saw also a house larger than any we had seen, though not more than 30 feet long; it seemed as if it had never been finished, being full of chips; the woodwork was squared so evenly and smoothly that we could not doubt of their having very sharp tools. All the side-posts were carved in a masterly style of their whimsical taste, which seems confined to making spirals and distorted human faces; all these had clearly been moved from some other place, so that such work probably bears a value among them.

While Mr. Sporing was drawing on the island he saw a most strange bird fly over his head. He described it as being about as large as a kite, and brown like one; his tail, however, was of so enormous a length that he at first took it for a flock of small birds flying after him: he who is a grave thinking man, and is not at all given to telling wonderful stories, says he judged it to be yards in length.