Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/168

138 by these people as an ornament. Soon after we went to see a very lofty shed, which served as a shelter to a war canoe, eighty-feet long, the inside of which was strengthened by very stout knees, placed about a yard distant from each other. Feenou, after having made us admire the construction of this double canoe, informed us, that he had taken it in an engagement, which he had fought with the people of the Feejee Islands.

As we proceeded toward the west, we crossed a spacious enclosure, formed of palisades, the posts of which, placed in an oblique direction, were tolerably near to each other, within this grew bread-fruit trees, plantain trees, the corypha umbraculifera (great fan palm), &c. Farther on, in an enclosure of much less extent, we found a small hut, of a conical figure, in which, we were informed, were deposited the remains of a chief lately dead; and a caution was given us, that entering into it was prohibited.

After this we walked on near a quarter of an hour in a narrow path, bounded on each side by palisades, till we reached an extensive esplanade, where King Toobou was soon to arrive (See Plate XXVI.).

We were invited by Omalaï, to take the cool air under a shed, the shape of which was nearly half an oval, twelve yards in length, by five in