are known to have settled in Mangaia to the eastward, and in Ongtong Java to the westward,-castaways, per The Tongiaki,1 the canoe, now obsolete, in which the early voyages of the Tongans were made. (From a plate in the British Museum.) haps, who fought their way into the possession of lands belonging to the aborigines. II. THE COMING OF THE FOREIGNERS. Under a strong central Government, knowing nothing of civil disturbances, never called upon to repel invasions from without, the people had time to digest the new in 1 Unlike the Fijian canoe, the Tongiaki had a fixed bow, and went about like the modern cutter. In tacking, the sail was unlaced from the yards and carried to leeward of the mast. It was entirely displaced by the more complicated Ndrua of Fiji about the beginning of this century. Both Schouten and Captain Cook give detailed descriptions, and I have an excellent model built for me under King George's directions. 1610.] THE COMING OF THE FOREIGNERS. 309 stitutions. If their young men wanted excitement, there was Fiji: there they might have their fill of war and rapine, but in Tonga they must obey the chiefs set over them by the gods or brave the consequence of the broken tabu. In those days no Tongan had dared to test the belief. It was not a superstition. They had seen men die whom they knew to have infringed a tabu, and others, cursed by some enemy, had withered away before their eyes. Thus was royal authority strengthened by physical fear-ever the strongest influence with the mob.1 For sixty years the land was at peace. They built great tombs for their chiefs, and turned the islands into vast gardens, so that there was abundance, and rich portions of the first-fruits were presented to the gods. Then Moungatonga, the Tui Haatakalaua, took the Samoan woman Tohuia to wife, and when her son Ngata grew to manhood, Moungatonga grew wearied with the weight of authority, and charged him with the dominion of the people, while he withdrew himself into the honoured obscurity of rank without power. The new temporal king took his title from the sacred soil of Kanokubolu 1 Now that the bugbear of the tabu has been put to flight before the light of Christianity, they have preserved the belief in a changed form. They believe that he who swears falsely, after kissing the Bible, must die. In 1886 a house was burned down by an incendiary, and before the courts could interfere, all the villagers met together for a trial by ordeal. A Bible was brought, and each person took a solemn oath that he or she was innocent of the crime. They took no interest in the judicial inquiry, feeling sure that the culprit would die within a few weeks. Not long afterwards an elderly woman named Ana began to sicken and refuse her food. She grew rapidly worse, and at last confessed that, in a fit of jealousy, she had set fire to the house of her rival. Her end was hastened by the warnings of her relations that if she was guilty of perjury she had no chance of recovery. She was fairly frightened to death. in Hihifo. At first probably he was the mouthpiece or messenger of the higher chiefs, their Chancellor and perpetual Prime Minister; but the power was destined to grow until it overshadowed the dignity of the heavendescended Tui Tonga himself. In Ngata's reign the Tongans first heard of a world outside their own. On May 16, 1616, the two high The discovery of Niua-tobutabu by Schouten and Lemaire, 1616. (Reduced from a rare Dutch plate in the possession of Dr Corney.) pooped Dutch ships of Schouten and Lemaire anchored at Niua-tobutabu. To the fierce inhabitants they were no visitants from the world of spirits, but men like themselves, possessed of property worth seizing. Under colour of selling cocoa-nuts to the crew they tried to carry off a boat; and one of them was shot dead before they would desist. They then made a general attack upon the ship, 1643.] THE COMING OF THE FOREIGNERS. 311 and were repulsed with heavy loss. Thus one fact was learned the strangers could not be openly assailed with safety; and the fame of Schouten's prowess, recorded in a rough poem, may have served to protect his great countryman Tasman. On January 27, 1643, Abel Tasman anchored off Hihifo Schouten and Lemaire buying provisions in Futuna, 1616, showing (Reduced from a rare Dutch plate in the possession of Dr Corney.) in Tongatabu. The natives crowded on board his ships to barter provisions for iron, but beyond pilfering when unobserved, they did not annoy their visitors. A chief, probably the Tui Tonga, Tabuoji, entertained them very hospitably, and invited them on shore. They found that the country was cultivated like a garden. It was divided. by neat reed fences into plantations, within which stood the house of the owner. They saw no weapons and no villages, for the time had not yet come when the alarms of civil war would drive the people together for mutual protection. The age of Fanongonongo Tokoto (making proclamation while reclining) meant the age of peace and plenty rather than the age of a crowded population. Among the presents given to the Tui Tonga was a wooden An unprovoked attack by Schouten upon a Tongiaki off Niua, May 1616. Vide Appendix II. (Reduced from a rare Dutch plate in the possession of Dr Corney.) mony of moëmoë. bowl, said to be that which, in the Tui Tonga's absence, was used by his subjects to absolve the tabu in the cereTasman sailed away, and the Tongans saw no more of the foreigners for 124 years. The priceless iron tools they had given them had long been worn out and disappeared, but the memory of their coming, embalmed by one of the native poets, remained fresh to its smallest details. Four kings had reigned and had been laid in their |