the island of
Feejee, had a son and two daughters, and that these three persons, as
well as their mother, rank above Futtafaihe the king.

[Footnote 191: The reader need not be reminded that Tamoloa, which
signifies a chief, in the dialect of Hamao, and Tammaha, become the
same word, by the change of a single letter, the articulation of which
is not very strongly marked.--D.]

We endeavoured, in vain, to trace the reason of this singular
pre-eminence of the _Tammahas_, for we could learn nothing besides this
account of their pedigree. The mother, and one of the daughters called
Tooeela-kaipa, live at Vavaoo. Latoolibooloo, the son, and the other
daughter, whose name is Moungoula-kaipa, reside at Tongataboo. The
latter is the woman who is mentioned to have dined with me on the 21st
of June. This gave occasion to our discovering her superiority over the
king, who would not eat in her presence, though she made no scruple to
do so before him, and received from him the customary obeisance, by
touching her foot. We never had an opportunity of seeing him pay this
mark of respect to Latoolibooloo, but we have observed him leave off
eating, and have his victuals put aside, when the latter came into the
same house. Latoolibooloo assumed the privilege of taking any thing from
the people, even if it belonged to the king; and yet, in the ceremony
called _Natche_, he assisted only in the same manner as the other
principal men. He was looked upon, by his countrymen, as a madman; and
many of his actions seemed to confirm this judgment. At Eooa, they
shewed me a good deal of land said to belong to him; and I saw there a
son of his, a child, whom they distinguished by the same title as his
father. The son of the greatest prince in Europe could not be more
humoured and caressed than this little _Tammaha_ was.

The language of the Friendly Islands has the greatest affinity
imaginable to that of New Zealand, of Wateeoo, and Mangeea; and,
consequently, to that of Otaheite and the Society Islands. There are
also many of their words the same with those used by the natives of
Cocos Island, as appears from the vocabulary collected there by Le Maire
and Schouten.[192] The mode of pronunciation differs, indeed,
considerably, in many instances, from that both of New Zealand and
Otaheite, but still a great number of words are either exactly the same,
or so little changed, that their common original may be satisfactorily
traced. The language, as s