While I was passing the day in attendance on these great men, Mr. Anderson, with some others, made an excursion into the country, which furnished him with the following remarks: “To the westward of the tent, the country is totally uncultivated for near two miles, though quite covered with trees and bushes in a natural state, growing with the greatest vigour. Beyond this is a pretty large plain, on which are some cocoa-trees, and a few small plantations that appear to have been lately made; and seemingly on ground that has never been cultivated before. Near the creek which runs to the westward of the tent the land is quite flat, and partly overflowed by the sea every tide. When that retires, the surface is seen to be composed of coral rock, with holes of yellowish mud scattered up and down; and toward the edges, where it is a little firmer, are innumerable little openings, from which issue as many small crabs of two or three different sorts, which swarm upon the spot as flies upon a carcase; but are so nimble that, on being approached, they disappear in an instant, and baffle even the natives to catch any of them. “At this place is a work of art, which shows that these people are capable of some design and perseverance when they mean to accomplish any thing. This work begins, on one side, as a narrow causeway, which, becoming gradually broader, rises with a gentle ascent to the height of ten feet, where it is five paces broad, and the whole length seventy-four paces. Joined to this is a sort of circus, whose diameter is thirty paces, and not above a foot or two higher than the causeway that joins it, with some trees planted in the middle. On the opposite side, another causeway of the same sort descends; but this is not above forty paces long, and is partly in ruin. The whole is built with large coral stones, with earth on the surface, which is quite overgrown with low trees and shrubs; and, from its decaying in several places, seems to be of no modern date. Whatever may have been its use formerly, it seems to be of none now; and all that we could learn of it from the natives was, that it belonged to Poulaho, and is called _Etchee_.” On the 16th, in the morning, after visiting the several works now carrying on ashore, Mr. Gore and I took a walk into the country; in the course of which nothing remarkable appeared, but our having opportunities of seeing the whole process of making cloth, which is the principal manufacture of these islands as well as of many others in this ocean. In the narrative of my first voyage[186], a minute description is given of this operation as performed at Otaheite; but the process here differing in some particulars, it may be worth while to give the following account of it.