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canoes, whatever might be the size or quality, they considered an outrigger essential to their remaining upright upon the water, and consequently could not believe that a canoe without one would live at sea. The absence of this has ever appeared to the South Sea Islanders one of the greatest wonders connected with the visits of the first European vessels. At one of the Harvey Islands, where the natives had never seen a vessel until recently visited by a Missionary, when the boat was lowered down to the water, and pushed off by the rowers from the ship's side, the natives simultaneously and involuntarily exclaimed-"It will overturn and sink, it has no outrigger."

The chiefs and others, to whom Maui delivered his prophecy, were also convinced in their own minds, that a canoe would not swim without this necessary balance, and charged him with foretelling an impossibility. He persisted in his predictions, and, in order to remove their scepticism as to its practicability, launched his umete, or oval wooden dish, upon the surface of a pool of water near which he was sitting, and declared that in the same manner would the vessel swim that should arrive.

We have not been able to ascertain the period of their history during which this prediction was delivered. It was preserved among the people by oral tradition, until the arrival of Captain Wallis's and Cook's vessels. When the natives first saw these, they were astonished at their gigantic size, imposing appear ance, and the tremendous engines on board. These appearances induced them first to suppose the ships were islands inhabited by a supernatural order of beings, at whose direction the lightnings flashed, the thunders

roared, and the destroying demon slew, with instantaneous but invisible strokes, the most daring and valiant of their warriors. But when they afterwards went alongside, or ventured on board, and saw that they were floating fabrics of timber, borne on the surface of the waters, and propelled by the winds of heaven, they unanimously declared that the prediction of Maui was accomplished, and the canoes without outriggers had arrived. They were confirmed in this interpretation, when they saw the small boats belonging to the ships employed in passing to and fro between the vessel and the shore. These being simple in their structure, and approaching their own canoes in size, yet conveying in perfect safety those by whom they were manned, excited their astonishment, and confirmed their convictions that Maui was a prophet.

When a boat or a vessel has been sailing in or out of the harbour, I have often heard the natives, while gazing at the stately motion, exclaim, Te vaa a Maui e! Ta vaa ama ore. "Oh the canoe of Maui! the outriggerless canoe!" They have frequently asked us how he could have known such a vessel would arrive, since it was at that time considered by all besides as an impossibility. We have told them it was probable he had observed the steadiness with which his umete, or other hollow wooden vessels, floated on the water, and had thence inferred that at some future period they might behold larger vessels equally destitute of any exterior balancing power. They in general consider the use of boats and shipping among them as an accomplishment of his prediction.

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The islanders also state, that there is another prediction, still to be fulfilled; and although it appears

to them as great an improbability as this, yet the actual appearance of one, leads many to think that possibly they may witness the other. This remaining prediction also has reference to a canoe, and declares that after the arrival of the canoe without an outrigger, e vaa taura ore, a canoe or vessel without ropes or cordage shall come among them. What idea Maui designed to convey by this declaration, it is perhaps not easy to ascertain; but the people say it is next to impossible that the masts should be sustained, the sails attached, or the vessel worked, without ropes or cordage. They say, however, that one prediction respecting the vessels has been accomplished, but that the other remains to be realized. I have often thought, when contemplating the little use of rigging on board our steam-vessels, that should a specimen of this modern invention ever reach the South Sea Islands, although the natives would not, perhaps, like the inhabitants of the banks of the Ganges, be ready to fall down and worship the wonderful exhibition of mechanical skill, they would be equally astonished at that power within itself by which it would be propelled, and would at once declare that the second prediction of Maui was accomplished, and the vessel without rigging or cordage had arrived.

They have other predictions, but less circumstantial or probable, yet I never could learn that they have ever been led, from the declarations of their wise men, to anticipate the arrival of any distinguished personage in their country. The expectation of some wise and great prince or ruler rising up among them, or coming from some distant region, which has prevailed among many nations, and is generally supposed to refer to the

appearance of the Saviour, does not seem to have existed among them; unless we suppose the anticipated return of Rono to the Sandwich Islands, an Avatar of whom, the inhabitants supposed Captain Cook to be, refers to this event.

Traditions of the deluge, the most important event in reference to the external structure and appearance of our globe that has occurred since its creation, have been found to exist among the natives of the South Sea Islands, from the earliest periods of their history. Accounts, more or less according with the scripture narrative of this awful visitation of Divine justice upon the antediluvian world, have been discovered among most of the nations of the earth; and the striking analogy between those religiously preserved by the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific, and the Mosaic account, would seem to indicate a degree of high antiquity belonging to this isolated people.

The principal facts are the same in the traditions prevailing among the inhabitants of the different groups, although they differ in several minor particulars. In one group the accounts stated, that in ancient times Taaroa, the principal god according to their mythology, the creator of the world, being angry with men on account of their disobedience to his will, overturned the world into the sea, when the earth sunk in the waters, excepting a few aurus, or projecting points, which remaining above its surface, constituted the present cluster of islands. The memorial preserved by the inhabitants of Eimeo, states, that after the inundation of the land, when the water subsided, a man landed from a canoe near Tiataepua, in their island, and erected an altar, or marae, in honour of his god.

The tradition, which prevails in the Leeward Islands, is intimately connected with the island of Raiatea. According to this, shortly after the first peopling of the world by the descendants of Taata, Ruahatu, the Neptune of the South Sea Islanders, was reposing among the coralline groves in the depths of the ocean, on a spot that, as his resort, was sacred. A fisherman, either through forgetfulness or disregard of the tabu, and sacredness of the place, paddled his canoe upon the forbidden waters, and lowered his hooks among the branching corals at the bottom. The hooks became entangled in the hair of the sleeping god. After remaining some time, the fisherman endeavoured to pull up his hooks, but was for a long period unable to move them. At length they were suddenly disentangled from whatever they had been attached to, and he began to draw them towards the surface. In an instant, however, the god, whom he had aroused from his slumbers, appeared at the surface of the water, and, after upbraiding him for his impiety, declared, that the land was criminal or convicted of guilt, and should be destroyed.

The affrighted fisherman prostrated himself before the god of the sea, confessed his sorrow for what he had done, and implored his forgiveness, beseeching him that the judgment denounced might be averted, or that he might escape. Ruahatu, moved by his penitence and importunity, directed him to return home for his wife and child, and then proceed to a small island called Toa-marama, which is situated within the reefs on the eastern side of Raiatea. Here he was promised security, amid the destruction of the surrounding islands. The man hastened to his residence, and proceeded with

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