A plurality of wives is not admitted amongst them under any circumstances. The sexes rarely live together, as man and wife, until they have arrived at the middle age of life. When a man wishes to take a wife, he first obtains the consent of the female, who solicits that of her friends, which, being obtained, the girl's father kills a hog, or, if a chief, a number of hogs, and makes a feast, to which all the friends of both parties are invited. After this ceremonial is performed, which is an occasion of great merriment, the parents of the girl furnish her with a few pieces of tappa cloth, and she is conducted by her husband to his house. The females, although invited to these feasts, are not permitted to partake of the hogs, roasted for the occasion. They are tabooed for the men alone. Hogs are scarcely ever used by the natives, but upon the occasion of a death or marriage. When a chief, or other person dies, possessing many hogs, a great feast is made. The only arms, that are now generally used, are muskets. Most of the natives, who have any property, own one or more. I did not see a single war club at Nooaheeva, and but few spears. I met several persons, who had the scars of musket balls, that they told me were received in battle. Each of the renegade Englishmen was living with a chief, who thought there was scarcely any thing that he could not perform. Besides supporting them, they gave them all the consequence of chiefs in their intercourse with the natives, so far as their own authority would admit of it. They were highly respected by the natives, and even John Luxon boasted to me of his superiority over the other Indians, in speaking English. I asked John, of what advantage his speaking English was to him, to which he replied, that it enabled him to cheat his countrymen. The whole face of the island of Nooaheeva is high and mountainous. Every part I visited is composed of volcanic cinders, and evidently owes its origin to some great convulsion of nature. Whilst we remained at Massachusetts' Bay, the weather was mild and pleasant. We had several heavy showers, which, in one instance, only was accompanied with a squall of wind. After these showers it was delightful to contemplate the beauty of the innumerable little cascades of water every where falling over the rocks from the tops of the mountains. In a few hours, many of them would become less brilliant, and some would quite disappear. We found the longitude of our anchorage by the mean of three chronometers, to be one hundred and thirty-nine degrees fifty-four minutes and thirty seconds west; latitude, by a series of observations, eight degrees fifty-seven minutes forty-five seconds south.