nt to this
revolting practice. The horrible conclusion has almost always been
derived from the second-hand evidence of Europeans, or else from the
admissions of the savages themselves, after they have in some degree
become civilized. The Polynesians are aware of the detestation in which
Europeans hold this custom, and therefore invariably deny its existence,
and with the craft peculiar to savages, endeavour to conceal every trace
of it.

The excessive unwillingness betrayed by the Sandwich Islanders, even at
the present day, to allude to the unhappy fate of Cook, has often been
remarked. And so well have they succeeded in covering the event with
mystery, that to this very hour, despite all that has been said and
written on the subject, it still remains doubtful whether they wreaked
upon his murdered body the vengeance they sometimes inflicted upon their
enemies.

At Kealakekau, the scene of that tragedy, a strip of ship's copper
nailed against an upright post in the ground used to inform
the traveller that beneath reposed the 'remains' of the great
circumnavigator. But I am strongly inclined to believe not only the
corpse was refused Christian burial, but that the heart which was
brought to Vancouver some time after the event, and which the Hawaiians
stoutly maintained was that of Captain Cook, was no such thing; and that
the whole affair was a piece of imposture which was sought to be palmed
off upon the credulous Englishman.

A few years since there was living on the island of Maui (one of the
Sandwich group) an old chief, who, actuated by a morbid desire for
notoriety, gave himself out among the foreign residents of the place
as the living tomb of Captain Cook's big toe!--affirming that at the
cannibal entertainment which ensued after the lamented Briton's death,
that particular portion of his body had fallen to his share. His
indignant countrymen actually caused him to be prosecuted in the native
courts, on a charge nearly equivalent to what we term defamation of
character; but the old fellow persisting in his assertion, and no
invalidating proof being adduced, the plaintiffs were cast in the suit,
and the cannibal reputation of the defendant firmly established. This
result was the making of his fortune; ever afterwards he was in the
habit of giving very profitable audiences to all curious travellers who
were desirous of beholding the man who had eaten the great navigator's
great toe.

About a week after my di