was well worth our notice, both with respect to the extensive plan on
which it was executed, and to the various motions, as well as the exact
unity, with which they were performed. Neither pencil nor pen can
describe the numerous actions and motions, the singularity of which was
not greater, than was the ease and gracefulness with which they were
performed.

At night, we were entertained with the _bomai_, or night dances, on a
space before Feenou's temporary habitation. They lasted about three
hours; in which time we had about twelve of them performed, much after
the same manner as those at Hepaee. But, in two, that were performed by
women, a number of men came and formed a circle within their's. And, in
another, consisting of twenty-four men, there were a number of motions
with the hands, that we had not seen before, and were highly applauded.
The music was, also, once changed, in the course of the night; and in
one of the dances, Feenou appeared at the head of fifty men who had
performed at Hepaee, and he was well dressed with linen, a large piece
of gauze, and some little pictures hung round his neck. But it was
evident, after the diversions were closed, that we had put these poor
people, or rather that they had put themselves, to much inconvenience.
For being drawn together on this uninhabited part of their island,
numbers of them were obliged to lie down and sleep under the bushes, by
the side of a tree, or of a canoe; nay, many either lay down in the open
air, which they are not fond of, or walked about all the night.

The whole of this entertainment was conducted with far better order,
than could have been expected in so large an assembly. Amongst such a
multitude, there must be a number of ill-disposed people; and we,
hourly, experienced it. All our care and attention did not prevent their
plundering us, in every quarter; and that in the most daring and
insolent manner. There was hardly any thing that they did not attempt to
steal; and yet, as the crowd was always so great, I would not allow the
sentries to fire, lest the innocent should suffer for the guilty. They
once, at noon day, ventured to aim at taking an anchor from off the
Discovery's bows; and they would certainly have succeeded, if the flook
had not hooked one of the chain-plates in lowering down the ship's side,
from which they could not disengage it by hand; and tackles were things
they were unacquainted with. The only act of violence they were gui