As the light of day shown into the hut, it revealed a sight seldom witnessed by civilized man. Around the hut sat sixty or seventy cannibals, more frightful than ever if possible; their paint being rubbed together in many instances, gave their bodies such an appearance as for a moment to lead one to doubt that they were human beings. Before one savage, would lay a human head, save that part which could be released from it, the lower jaw; which would be in possession of another. The bones of these bodies were well distributed among them, showing conclusively that none had failed to get their share. I had understood by them that the oven was opened about midnight, and that they had now done their feast; what was left was to be given to the boys; the women, as I have before stated, were not allowed to taste of it though they frequently got it by stealth, as some of them did on this occasion after the bones and broken meat was given to the boys. My attention was directed to an old Tonga ta boo savage, whom I had seen, however, frequently before, who was a Ma-ti or mechanic among them, whose particular business it was to manufacture sail needles from the shin bones of their cannibal victims. The sails to their canoes, being made in a triangular form, of thick mats sewed together with sennet, renders it necessary to have long and crooked needles, and perhaps there is nothing among them from which this article could be so well manufactured as from the shin bone of a man. This old savage sat near the King, with four shin bones between his own, and feeling himself entitled by his peculiar occupation to those parts of the victim, never failed to have his share of the spoils. I had heard through my whole stay at this place that he was the most notorious cannibal in the tribe; and his whole appearance conformed well with his acknowledged character. He was of a large and muscular frame, raw boned, his skin brawny and dry, and with no nose upon his face; he having lost this prominent feature some years previous, for the indulgence of a crime among the wives of a neighboring chief. His nose was bitten off. I knew of but one crime among these islanders, which a man or woman could commit, the penalty of which was the loss of this member. Many of the savages now begun to leave the Boo-re, and among the rest was Sina-beatee who stated to me that he should go on board the ship in the boats which came on shore for the beche-le-mer. I rose to go, but wishing to carry with me some relic as a remembrance of the scene I had witnessed, I engaged the old Tonga savage to make a pair of sail needles, one from the limb of each of the devoured victims, promising him a good compensation for them. He gave them to me in two or three days after, neatly wrought, which I placed among my curiosities, which within one month from that time were all together with the ill-fated ship.