Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/200

166 his father. He frequently repeated that he was our friend, and that he could wish to accompany us to France. Titifa, on the contrary, expressed not the least fear.

These two chiefs spent the night in the great cabin of the Recherche. Each had brought with him a wooden pillow, of the shape of that represented in Plate XXXIII. Fig. 35, on which, after lying down, they laid the back part of their head, according to the custom of these people, which is no doubt the cause of the very perceptible flattening observed in that part.

During the night we saw a greater number of fires on the north coast of Tongataboo, than we had ever perceived before.

The next morning at day-break we were awakened by the piercing cries of two women, who were making their lamentations, as they went round our ship in their canoe. They cried alternately one after the other, no doubt that their voices might be distinguished by Titifa, who knew them immediately. These women were his wife and daughter, who, in their grief, beat their cheeks and breast with their fists. He immediately ran upon deck, but could not quiet their alarm, till he had given them an account of the good treatment he had received on board: and when he told them that he should soon re-