The very short and imperfect intercourse which we had with the natives, put it out of our power to form any accurate judgment of the mode of government established amongst them; but, from the general resemblance of customs, and particularly from what we observed of the honours paid to their chiefs, it seems reasonable to believe, that it is of the same nature with that which prevails throughout all the islands we had hitherto visited; and probably their wars amongst themselves are equally frequent. This, indeed, might be inferred from the number of weapons which we found them possessed of, and from, the excellent order these were kept in. But we had direct proof of the fact from their own confession; and, as we understood, these wars are between the different districts of their own island, as well as between it and their neighbours of Oneeheow and Orrehoua, we need scarcely assign any other cause besides this to account for the appearance already mentioned, of their population bearing no proportion to the extent of their ground capable of cultivation. Besides their spears or lances, made of a fine chesnut-coloured wood, beautifully polished, some of which are barbed at one end, and flattened to a point at the other, they have a sort of weapon which we had never seen before, and not mentioned by any navigator, as used by the natives of the South Sea. It is somewhat like a dagger, in general about a foot and a half long, sharpened at one or both ends, and secured to the hand by a string. Its use is to stab in close fight; and it seems well adapted to the purpose. Some of these may be called double daggers, having a handle in the middle, with which they are better enabled to strike different ways. They have also bows and arrows; but, both from their apparent scarcity and their slender make, it may almost be presumed that they never use them in battle. The knife or saw, formerly mentioned, with which they dissect the dead bodies, may also be ranked amongst their weapons, as they both strike and cut with it when closely engaged. It is a small flat wooden instrument, of an oblong shape, about a foot long, rounded at the corners, with a handle almost like one sort of the _patoos_ of New Zealand; but its edges are entirely surrounded with sharks' teeth, strongly fixed to it, and pointing outward; having commonly a hole in the handle, through which passes a long string, which is wrapped several times round the wrist. We also suspected that they use slings on some occasions; for we got some pieces of the _haematites_, or blood-stone, artificially made of an oval shape, divided longitudinally, with a narrow groove in the middle of the convex part. To this the person, who had one of them, applied a cord of no great thickness, but would not part with it, though he had no objection to part with the stone, which must prove fatal, when thrown with any force, as it weighed a pound. We likewise saw some oval pieces of