trolabe, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1832)
pp. 90 _sq._, "_Si tout etait suivant l'ordre legal a
Tonga-Tabou, on verrait d'abord a la tete de la societe le
toui-tonga qui est le veritable souverain nominal des iles
Tonga, et qui jouit meme des honneurs divins_."

Below the two great chiefs or kings were many subordinate chiefs, and
below them again the social ranks descended in a succession of sharply
marked gradations to the peasants, who tilled the ground, and whose
lives and property were entirely at the mercy of the chiefs.[43] Yet the
social system as a whole seems to have worked well and smoothly. "It
does not, indeed, appear," says Captain Cook, "that any of the most
civilised nations have ever exceeded this people, in the great order
observed on all occasions; in ready compliance with the commands of
their chiefs; and in the harmony that subsists throughout all ranks, and
unites them, as if they were all one man, informed with, and directed
by, the same principle."[44] According to the American ethnographer,
Horatio Hale, the mass of the people in the Tonga islands had no
political rights, and their condition in that respect was much inferior
to that of commoners in the Samoan islands, since in Tonga the
government was much stronger and better organized, as he puts it, for
the purpose of oppression. On the other hand, he admitted that
government in Tonga was milder than in Tahiti, and infinitely preferable
to the debasing despotism which prevailed in Hawaii or the Sandwich
Islands.[45]

[43] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 424 _sq._, 429 _sq._; W.
Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 83 _sqq._

[44] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 426.

[45] Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition,
Ethnography and Philology_, p. 32.

Sec. 3. _The Tongan Religion: its General Principles_

For our knowledge of the religion and the social condition of the
Tongans before they came under European influence, we are indebted
chiefly to an English sailor, William Mariner, who lived as a captive
among them for about four years, from 1806 to 1810.[46] His account of
the natives, carefully elicited from him and published by a medical
doctor, Mr. John Martin, M.D., is one of the most valuable descriptions
of a savage people which we possess. Mariner was a good observer and
endowed with an excellent memory, which enabled him to retain and record
his experiences after his return to Engl