or, at
most, gets a slight beating. If a person kill another in a quarrel,
the friends of the deceased assemble, and engage the survivor and his
adherents. If they conquer, they take possession of the house, lands,
and goods of the other party; but if conquered, the reverse takes
place. If a _Manahoone_ kill the _Toutou_, or slave of a chief, the
latter sends people to take possession of the lands and house of the
former, who flies either to some other part of the island, or to some
of the neighbouring islands. After some months he returns, and finding
his stock of hogs much increased, he offers a large present of these,
with some red feathers, and other valuable articles, to the _Toutou_'s
master, who generally accepts the compensation, and permits him to
repossess his house and lands. This practice is the height of venality
and injustice; and the slayer of the slave seems to be under no
farther necessity of absconding, than to impose upon the lower class
of people, who are the sufferers. For it does not appear that the
chief has the least power to punish this _Manahoone_; but the whole
management marks a collusion between him and his superior, to gratify
the revenge of the former, and the avarice of the latter. Indeed, we
need not wonder that the killing of a man should be considered as
so venial an offence, amongst a people who do not consider it as any
crime at all to murder their own children. When talking to them, about
such instances of unnatural cruelty, and asking, whether the chiefs or
principal people were not angry, and did not punish them? I was told,
that the chief neither could nor would interfere in such cases; and
that every one had a right to do with his own child what he pleased.

Though the productions, the people, and the customs and manners of
all the islands in the neighbourhood, may, in general, be reckoned
the same as at Otaheite, there are a few differences which should be
mentioned, as this may lead to an enquiry about more material ones
hereafter, if such there be, of which we are now ignorant.

With regard to the little island Mataia, or Osnaburgh Island, which
lies twenty leagues east of Otaheite, and belongs to a chief of that
place, who gets from thence a kind of tribute, a different dialect
from that of Otaheite is there spoken. The men of Mataia also wear
their hair very long; and when they fight, cover their arms with a
substance which is beset with sharks' teeth, and their bodies wi