The islanders had three seasons besides these. The first they called Tetau, autumn, or season of plenty, the harvest of bread-fruit. It commenced with the month Tetae, December, and continued till Faahu. This is not only the harvest, but the summer of the South Sea Islands. It is also the season of most frequent rain. The next is Te tau miti rahi, the season of high sea. This commences with Tieri, November, and continues until January. The third is the longest, and is called the Te tau Poai, the winter, or season of drought and scarcity. It generally commences in Paroromua, July, and continues till Tema, October.

The natives have distinct names for each day and each night of the month or moon. They do not, however, reckon time by days, but by nights. Hence, instead of saying, How many days since? they would inquire, Rui hia aenei? "How many nights?" The following are the different nights of each moon.

The seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth nights, or nights immediately succeeding the full moon, were considered as seasons when spirits wander more than at any other time; they were also favourable to the depredations of thieves. They do not appear to have divided their months into weeks, or to have had any division between months and days. Totally ignorant of clocks or watches, they could not divide the day into hours. They, however, marked the progress of the day with sufficient exactness, by noticing the position of the sun in the firmament, the appearance of the atmosphere, and the ebbing and flowing of the tide.

Midnight they called the Tui ra po.

One or two in the morning-Maru ao.

Cock-crowing, or about three o'clock in the morning-Aaoa te moa; aaoa being an intimation of the crowing of a cock.

The dawn of day-Tatahita.

Morning twilight-Marao rao.

When the flies begin to stir-Ferao rao.

When a man's face can be known-Itea te mata taata.

The first appearance of the upper part of the sun-Te hatea rao te ra. Sunrise, or morning-Poi poi.

The sun above the horizon-Ofao tuna te ra.

The sun a little higher, sending his rays on the land-Matiti titi te ra.

About seven o'clock-Tohe pu te ra.

Eight o'clock-Pere tia te ra.

About nine-Ua paare te ra.

Ten or eleven-Ua medua te ra.

Noon-day, or the sun on the meridian-Avatea.

One or two in the afternoon-Taupe te ra.

About three in the afternoon-Tape-tape te ra.

Nearly four-Tahataha te ra.

About five-Hia-hia te ra.

Between five and six-Ua maru maru te ra.

Sun-setting, Ahi, ahi-Evening-Mairi-Te ra, Falling of the sun.

The beginning of darkness-Arehurehu.

Night, or the light quite gone-Po.

When the sea begins to flow towards the land-Pananu te tai.
About eleven at night-Tia rua te rui.

In order to facilitate their commercial transactions, and their intercourse with civilized nations, the English names for the months, and the days of the week, have been introduced. They have also been instructed in our methods of calculating the leap-years, &c.

The English method of mensuration has been introduced, and, with regard to short distances, they begin to understand it. The word hebedoma, assimilating easily with the peculiar vowel terminations of their words, and being distinct from any word in use among them, has been introduced to signify a week. It is not, however, so frequently employed by the people, as the word Sabbath. If a native wished to say he had been absent on a voyage or journey six weeks, he would generally say six Sabbaths, or one moon and two Sabbaths.

Considering their uncivilized state, and want of letters, their method of computing time is matter of astonishment, and shews that they must have existed as a nation for many generations, to have rendered it so perfect. It is also an additional proof that they are not deficient in mental capacity.

Their acquaintance with, and extensive use of numbers, under these circumstances, is still more surprising. They did not reckon by forties, after the manner of the Sandwich Islanders, but had a decimal method of calculation. These numerals were,

Atahi, one.

Arua, two.

Atoru, three.

Amaha, four.

Arima, five.

Aono, six.

Ahitu, seven.

Avaru, eight.

Aiva, nine.

Ahuru, ten.

Eleven would be Ahuru matahi, ten and one; and so on to twenty, which was simply Erua ahuru, two tens; twenty-one, two tens and one; and proceeding in this way till ten tens, or one hundred, which they called a Rau. The same method was repeated for every successive rau, or hundred, till ten had been enumerated, and these they called one Mano, or thousand. They continued in the same way to enumerate the units, ahurus or tens, raus or hundreds, and manos or thousands, until they had counted ten manos, or thousands; this they called a Manotini, or ten thousand. Continuing the same process, they counted ten manotinis, which they called a Rehu, or one hundred thousand. Advancing still farther, they counted ten rehus, which they called an Iu, which was ten hundred thousand, or one million.

They had no higher number than the iu, or million: they could, however, by means of the above terms or combinations, enumerate, with facility, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of millions.

The precision, regularity, and extent of their numbers has often astonished me; and how a people, having, comparatively speaking, but little necessity to use calculation and being destitute of a knowledge of figures, should have originated and matured such a system, is still wonderful, and appears, more than any other fact, to favour the opinion that these islands were peopled from a country whose inhabitants were highly civilized.

Many of their numerals are precisely the same as those used by the people of several of the Asiatic islands, and also in the remote and populous island of Madagascar. Occasionally the Islanders double the

number, by simply counting two instead of one. This is frequently practised in counting fish, bread-fruit, or cocoa-nuts, and is called double counting, by which all the above terms signify twice as large a number as is now affixed to them.

In counting, they usually employ a piece of the stalk of the cocoa-nut leaf, putting one aside for every ten, and gathering them up, and putting a longer one aside, for every rau, or hundred. The natives of most of the islands, adults and children, appear remarkably fond of figures and calculations, and receive the elements of arithmetic with great facility, and seeming delight.

They estimate the distance of places by the length of time it takes to travel or sail from one to the other. Thus, if we wished to give them an idea of the distance from the islands to England, we should say it was five months; and they would say the distance from Tahiti to Huahine was a night and a day, and from Huahine to Raiatea, from sunrise to nearly noon, &c.

But it is now high time to return from this apparently long digression, which, though somewhat diffuse, has an immediate bearing on the arithmetical calculations, the astronomical knowledge, and the nautical acquirements of these islanders, and bring our voyage to its termination.

The wind being light but fair through the night, and the sea pleasantly smooth, we kept on our course till the light of morning began to appear, and when the day broke had the satisfaction of beholding the island of Huahine at no very great distance, and immediately before us. We approached on the eastern side, but the wind being unfavourable for sailing to the settlement, we stood towards the shore. When we found ourselves within