Otaha, so far as I can find, is upon the very same footing. Boba and Ota are the two chiefs; the latter I have not seen; Boba is a stout, well-made young man; and we are told, is, after Opoony’s death, to marry his daughter, by which marriage he will be vested with the same regal authority as Opoony has now; so that, it should seem, though a woman may be vested with regal dignity, she cannot have regal power. I cannot find that Opoony has got any thing to himself by the conquest of these isles, any farther than providing for his nobles, who have seized on best part of the lands. He seems to have no demand on them for any of the many articles they have had from us. Oedidee has several times enumerated to me all the axes, nails, &c. which Opoony is possessed of, which hardly amount to as many as he had from me when I saw him in 1769. Old as this famous man is, he seems not to spend his last days in indolence. When we first arrived here, he was at Maurana; soon after, he returned to Bolabola; and we were now told, he was gone to Tubi. I shall conclude this account of these islands, with some observations on the watch which Mr. Wales hath communicated to me. At our arrival in Matavai Bay in Otaheite, the longitude pointed out by the watch was 2° 8ʹ 38-1/2ʺ too far to the west; that is, it had gained, since our leaving Queen Charlotte’s Sound, of its then rate of going, 8ʹ 34-1/2ʺ. This was in about five months, or rather more, during which time it had passed through the extremes of cold and heat. It was judged that half this error arose after we left Easter Island; by which it appeared that it went better in the cold than in the hot climates. END OF THE THIRD VOLUME. LONDON: Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, New-Street-Square. Footnotes Footnote 1: See Wafer’s Description of the Isthmus of Darien. Footnote 2: In the account given of St. Helena in the narrative of my former voyage I find two mistakes. Its inhabitants are far from exercising a wanton cruelty over their slaves; and they have had wheel-carriages and porters’ knots for many years. Footnote 3: This custom is not peculiar to the inhabitants of the Friendly Isles. See Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 253, &c. Footnote 4: See Dalrymple’s Collection of Voyages, vol. ii. Footnote 5: Vol. I. p. 61. to 73. Transcriber’s Note This book uses inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, which were retained in the ebook version. Some corrections have been made to the text, including normalizing punctuation. Further corrections are noted below: