oden probes, with which she had brushed the eyes
so as to make them bleed. It seems worth mentioning, that the natives of
these islands should attempt an operation of this sort, though I entered
the house too late to describe exactly how this female oculist employed
the wretched tools she had to work with.

I was fortunate enough to see a different operation going on in the same
house, of which I can give a tolerable account. I found there another
woman shaving a child's head, with a shark's tooth, stuck into the end
of a piece of stick. I observed that she first wetted the hair with a
rag dipped in water, applying her instrument to that part which she had
previously soaked. The operation seemed to give no pain to the child,
although the hair was taken off as close as if one of our razors had
been employed. Encouraged by what I now saw, I soon after tried one of
these singular instruments upon myself, and found it to be an excellent
_succedaneum_. However, the men of these islands have recourse to
another contrivance when they shave their beards. The operation is
performed with two shells, one of which they place under a small part of
the beard, and with the other, applied above, they scrape that part off.
In this manner they are able to shave very close. The process is,
indeed, rather tedious, but not painful; and there are men amongst them
who seemed to profess this trade. It was as common, while we were here,
to see our sailors go ashore to have their beards scraped off, after the
fashion of Hepaee, as it was to see their chiefs come on board to be
shaved by our barbers.

Finding that little or nothing of the produce of the island was now
brought to the ships, I resolved to change our station, and to wait
Feenou's return from Vavaoo, in some other convenient anchoring-place,
where refreshments might still be met with. Accordingly, in the forenoon
of the 26th, we got under sail, and stood to the southward along the
reef of the island, having fourteen and thirteen, fathoms water, with a
sandy bottom. However, we met with several detached shoals. Some of them
were discovered by breakers, some by the water upon them appearing
discoloured, and others by the lead. At half past two in the afternoon
having already passed several of these shoals, and seeing more of them
before us, I hauled into a bay that lies between the S. end of Lefooga
and the N. end of Hoolaiva, and there anchored in seventeen fathoms
water, the bottom