there than at Otaheite; for the natives of the former
island, I am persuaded, would have taken more pains to multiply the
breed.

The next day we took up our anchor, and moved the ships behind
Pangimodoo, that we might be ready to take the advantage of the first
favourable wind, to get through the narrows. The king, who was one of
our company this day at dinner, I observed, took particular notice of
the plates. This occasioned me to make him an offer of one, either of
pewter, or of earthenware. He chose the first; and then began to tell us
the several uses to which he intended to apply it. Two of them are so
extraordinary, that I cannot omit mentioning them. He said, that,
whenever he should have occasion to visit any of the other islands, he
would leave this plate behind him at Tongataboo, as a sort of
representative, in his absence, that the people might pay it the same
obeisance they do to himself in person. He was asked, what had been
usually employed for this purpose before he got this plate? and we had
the satisfaction of learning from him, that this singular honour had
hitherto been conferred on a wooden bowl in which he washed his hands.
The other extraordinary use to which he meant to apply it, in the room
of his wooden bowl, was to discover a thief. He said, that, when any
thing was stolen, and the thief could not be found out, the people were
all assembled together before him, when he washed his hands in water in
this vessel; after which it was cleaned, and then the whole multitude
advanced, one after another, and touched it in the same manner as they
touch his foot, when they pay him obeisance. If the guilty person
touched it, he died immediately upon the spot, not by violence, but by
the hand of Providence; and if any one refused to touch it, his refusal
was a clear proof that he was the man.

In the morning of the 5th, the day of the eclipse, the weather was dark
and cloudy, with showers of rain, so that we had little hopes of an
observation. About nine o'clock, the sun broke out at intervals for
about half an hour; after which it was totally obscured, till within a
minute or two of the beginning of the eclipse. We were all at our
telescopes, viz. Mr Bayly, Mr King, Captain Clerke, Mr Bligh, and
myself. I lost the observation, by not having a dark glass at hand,
suitable to the clouds that were continually passing over the sun; and
Mr Bligh had not got the sun into the field of his telescope; so that
the