and dangerous manœuvres, was altogether astonishing, and is scarcely to be credited.[16] An accident, of which I was a near spectator, shews at how early a period they are so far familiarized to the water, as both to lose all fears of it, and to set its dangers at defiance. A canoe being overset, in which was a woman with her children, one of them an infant, who, I am convinced, was not more than four years old, seemed highly delighted with what had happened, swimming about at its ease, and playing a hundred tricks, till the canoe was put to rights again. Besides the amusements I have already mentioned, the young children have one which was much played at, and shewed no small degree of dexterity. They take a short stick, with a peg sharpened at both ends, running through one extremity of it, and extending about an inch on each side; and throwing up a ball made of green leaves moulded together, and secured with twine, they catch it on the point of the peg; and immediately throwing it up again from the peg, they turn the stick round, and thus keep catching it on each peg alternately, without missing it, for a considerable time. They are not less expert at another game of the same nature, tossing up in the air and catching in their turns a number of these balls; so that we frequently saw little children thus keep in motion five at a time. With this latter play the young people likewise divert themselves at the Friendly Islands. The great resemblance which prevails in the mode of agriculture and navigation amongst all the inhabitants of the South Sea islands, leaves me very little to add on those heads. Captain Cook has already described the figure of the canoes we saw at Atooi. Those of the other islands were precisely the same; and the largest we saw was a double canoe belonging to Terreeoboo, which measured seventy feet in length, three and half in depth, and twelve in breadth; and each was hollowed out of one tree. The progress they have made in sculpture, their skill in painting cloth and the manufacturing of mats, have been all particularly described. The most curious specimens of the former which we saw during our second visit, are the bowls in which the chiefs drink _ava_. These are usually about eight or ten inches in diameter, perfectly round, and beautifully polished. They are supported by three, and sometimes four small human figures, in various attitudes. Some of them rest on the hands of their supporters, extended over the head, others on the head and hands, and some on the shoulders. The figures, I am told, are accurately proportioned and neatly finished, and even the anatomy of the muscles in supporting the weight well expressed.