several large bodies of the natives were put to flight, all the houses
were deserted, and not an Otaheitan was to be seen. The body being
deposited on the stage, the mourners were dismissed to wash themselves
in the river, and to resume their customary dresses and their usual
gaiety.

They are, however, so jealous of any one approaching these abodes of
the dead, that one of Cook's party, happening one day to pull a flower
from a tree which grew in one of these sepulchral inclosures, was struck
by a native who saw it, and came suddenly behind him. The morai of
Oberea was a pile of stone-work raised pyramidically, two hundred and
sixty-seven feet long, eighty-seven feet wide, and forty-four feet high,
terminating in a ridge like the roof of a house, and ascended by steps
of white coral stone neatly squared and polished, some of them not less
than three feet and a half by two feet and a half. Such a structure,
observes Cook, raised without the assistance of iron tools, or mortar to
join them, struck us with astonishment, as a work of considerable skill
and incredible labour.

On the same principle of making himself acquainted with every novelty
that presented itself, Captain Cook states that 'Mr. Banks saw the
operation of _tattooing_ performed upon the back of a girl about
thirteen years old. The instrument used upon this occasion had thirty
teeth, and every stroke, of which at least a hundred were made in a
minute, drew an ichor or serum a little tinged with blood. The girl bore
it with most stoical resolution for about a quarter of an hour; but the
pain of so many hundred punctures as she had received in that time then
became intolerable: she first complained in murmurs, then wept, and at
last burst into loud lamentations, earnestly imploring the operator to
desist. He was however inexorable; and when she began to struggle, she