terward found this to be the case. We were immediately conducted to
one of Poulaho's houses not far off, and near the public one, or
_malaee_, in which we had been, when we first visited Mooa. This, though
pretty large, seemed to be his private habitation, and was situated
within a plantation. The king took his seat at one end of the house, and
the people who came to visit him, sat down, as they arrived, in a
semicircle at the other end. The first thing done, was to prepare a bowl
of _kava_, and to order some yams to be baked for us. While these were
getting ready, some of us, accompanied by a few of the king's
attendants, and Omai as our interpreter, walked out to take a view of a
_fiatooka_, or burying-place, which we had observed to be almost close
by the house, and was much more extensive, and seemingly of more
consequence, than any we had seen at the other islands. We were told
that it belonged to the king. It consisted of three pretty large houses,
situated upon a rising ground, or rather just by the brink of it, with
a small one at some distance, all ranged longitudinally. The middle
house of the three first, was by much the largest, and placed in a
square, twenty-four paces by twenty-eight, raised about three feet. The
other houses were placed on little mounts, raised artificially to the
same height. The floors of these houses, as also the tops of the mounts
round them, were covered with loose, fine pebbles, and the whole was
inclosed by large flat stones[167] of hard coral rock, properly hewn,
placed on their edges, one of which stones measured twelve feet in
length, two in breadth, and above one in thickness. One of the houses,
contrary to what we had seen before, was open on one side; and within it
were two rude wooden busts of men, one near the entrance, and the other
farther in. On enquiring of the natives, who had followed us to the
ground, but durst not enter here, What these images were intended for?
they made us as sensible as we could wish, that they were merely
memorials of some chiefs who had been buried there, and not the
representations of any deity. Such monuments, it should seem, are seldom
raised; for these had, probably, been erected several ages ago. We were
told that the dead had been buried in each of these houses, but no marks
of this appeared. In one of them, was the carved head of an Otaheite
canoe, which had been driven ashore on their coast, and deposited here.
At the foot of the rising g