The next morning I was again ordered on shore with the watering party. The risk we had run the preceding day, determined Captain Clerke to send a considerable force from both ships for our guard, amounting in all to forty men under arms. This precaution, however, was now unnecessary; for we found the beach left entirely to ourselves, and the ground between the landing place and the lake, _tabooed_, with small white flags. We concluded, from this appearance, that some of the chiefs had certainly visited this quarter; and that, not being able to stay, they had kindly and considerately taken this step, for our greater security and convenience. We saw several men armed with long spears and daggers on the other side of the river, on our right; but they did not offer to give us the least molestation. Their women came over, and sat down on the banks close by us, and at noon we prevailed on some of the men to bring hogs and roots for our people, and to dress them for us. As soon as we had left the beach, they came down to the sea side, and one of them threw a stone at us; but his conduct seeming to be highly disapproved of by all the rest, we did not think it proper to show any resentment. The next day we completed our watering without meeting with any material difficulty. On our return to the ships, we found that several chiefs had been on board, and had made excuses for the behaviour of their countrymen, attributing their riotous conduct to the quarrels which subsisted at that time amongst the principal people of the island, and which had occasioned a general want of order and subordination amongst them. The government of Atooi was in dispute between Toneoneo, who had the supreme power when we were here last year, and a boy named Teavee. They are both, by different fathers, the grandsons of Pereeorannee, king of Woahoo, who had given the government of Atooi to the former, and that of Oneeheow to the latter. The quarrel had arisen about the goats we had left at Oneeheow the last year: the right of property in which was claimed by Toneoneo, on the pretence of that island’s being a dependency of his. The friends of Teavee insisting on the right of possession, both parties prepared to maintain their pretensions by force; and a few days before our arrival, a battle had been fought, in which Toneoneo had been worsted. The consequence of this victory was likely to affect Toneoneo in a much deeper manner than by the mere loss of the objects in dispute; for the mother of Teavee, having married a second husband, who was a chief of Atooi, and at the head of a powerful faction there, he thought that the present opportunity was not to be neglected of driving Toneoneo entirely out of the island, and of advancing his son-in-law to the government. I have already had occasion to mention that the goats, which had increased to the number of six, and would probably in a few years have stocked all these islands, were destroyed in the contest.