As soon as we had put off, every one in the boats stood up and gave three cheers; to which the Prince bowed several times, with his hands closed and raised to his breast. He remained on the parapet, and continued waving his fan to us as we rowed down the harbour, as long as we could see him. As the boats rowed in procession out of the harbour, all the chiefs ran along to the end of the causeway, where they continued, along with a vast crowd of natives, waving their handkerchiefs and fans till we were a great way from the shore. On each side of this group of chiefs a gong was beat incessantly. On every side, the rocks, the trees, houses, and boats, in short, every spot was crowded with people, waving their hands, and cheering us as we went along. This brilliant scene had less of novelty in it, to be sure, than what we had witnessed at the same place on the twenty-third of last month, but it was still more pleasing, for we had now become acquainted with many of the individuals forming this assemblage, and could feel assured that their expressions of kindness and respect were sincere. On the first occasion, too, the natives being ignorant of our intentions, were very generally alarmed at our appearance; and accordingly, though there was much curiosity shewn, a profound silence and stillness prevailed over the whole crowd, very different from the friendly shouts and signs with which they greeted us as we passed among them to-day. Precautions had been taken to prevent the ladies from indulging their curiosity as they had done on the first visit, not a female being seen any where. 26th of October.--Last night both the Alceste and Lyra were illuminated. At nine o'clock a _feu de joie_ was fired, and a number of fire-works let off from the yard-arms. A great concourse of the natives, who had been apprised of our intentions, assembled on the shore, and were very highly delighted with this brilliant exhibition. [Illustration: SCENE after the PRINCE of LOO CHOO'S FEAST.] The sick, as well as the remaining stores belonging to the Alceste, were removed on board this morning, and every preparation made for sea. While employed in completing the series of observations at the observatory, Madera joined us, having in his hand the sextant which I had given to the Prince yesterday. It seemed that he had been ordered to make himself acquainted with the use of it; and a more hopeless enterprise could not have been proposed to any man. But Madera was not a man to be thrown into despair by difficulty; on the contrary, he persevered in observing with this sextant, and the more the difficulty was made apparent, the more keenly he laboured to overcome it. The progress which he made in a few hours in the mere practical operation of taking angles and altitudes was not surprising, because there is in fact not much difficulty in it; but he was nowise satisfied with this proficiency, and seemed anxious to apply his knowledge to some useful purpose.