of these contests, which, as the persons engaged were renowned for their superior skill, was protracted considerably, though they are in general of brief duration. At length, however, the affair was decided by a fortuitous blow on the head. The vanquished champion was carried off the ground by his friends, while the conqueror was greeted with enthusiastic shouts of praise from the spectators; and "when these shouts ended, the young women round the circle rose, and sang, and danced a short kind of interlude in celebration of the hero."
With the brilliant exhibition of fireworks, which, in return for their hospitality and politeness, Cook got up for their amusement, both Poulaho and his people were greatly astonished and delighted. The animals, likewise, which were new to them, excited their wonder. Goats and sheep they regarded as a species of birds; but in the horse, the cow, the cat, and the rabbit they could perceive no analogy with the dog or the hog, the only animals with which they had till then been conversant.
The ideas of these people respecting property were either very vague, or very different from those of their visiters. Whatever they saw pleasing to the eye in the possession of the white men, without considering whether or not it was intended for them, they immediately appropriated to themselves; probably from the belief that these munificent strangers, who bestowed upon them so many wonderful things, were a kind of good genii, who, in their own case, stood in no need of such articles. Cook did not understand this simplicity. He attached the idea of a thief to every person who touched what did not belong to him, and punished these ignorant savages with the same rigid justice, if we may so apply the term, which he would have shown towards a hardened offender at the Old Bailey. In one instance even the justice of his conduct may be questioned. One of the chiefs stole some peacocks from the ships,
