There are several Morais in this part of the island; in one of which we saw a string of jaw-bones hung up on the Afale, or house, of the Ethooa, with several skulls laid in rows: and we met a man of a fair complexion, whose hair was white as milk; also their Aree Dehei, or king, who is called Oorea, and his son; the former appeared to be a very modest sort of a man, and the latter as handsome a youth as I ever saw. Opoone, who is king of Bolobola, stays in the next bay; they say he is a very old man, and we suppose the people of this island have submitted to him *.

The border of low land round the hills is very narrow here, and not very populous; but several of the inhabitants are comely, and in a much more flourishing state than those on the other side of the island, who are men of Yoolee-etea, or men of Bolobola, we could not learn which.

* Toobaiah informed us, that, some years past, the chiefs of Otaheite, and the neighbouring islands, banished such of their criminals as were convicted of thefts, and other crimes which they thought did not deserve death, to an adjacent island called Bolobola, which, before the commencement of that law, was almost barren and uninhabited; which practice continued several years. In process of time their numbers to greatly increased, that the island was insufficient for their subsistence. Being men of desperate fortunes, they made themselves canoes, turned pirates, and made prisoners such of the people of the inlands near them as had the misfortune to fall in their way, and seized their canoes and effects. Opoone, who was one of the worst of these criminals, by artful insinuations so wrought on the rest, that he was admitted their chief, or king; and, growing still more powerful, by frequent acquisitions of prisoners, he adventured to make war on the people of Otahaw, a neighbouring island, who, not expecting so sudden an invasion, were not prepared for defence, and were obliged to submit to be tributaries to him. He afterwards conquered Yoolee-etea, and other islands, which he annexed to his dominion of Bolobola.

Voyaging Accounts