tain; or whether they were seized with a temporary panic, confusion, or infatuation, amidst scenes so appalling; the fatal result will ever be remembered with the most poignant grief.
When their paroxysm of rage had spent itself, the natives themselves, as Mr. Ellis relates, bewailed the foul deed which their hands had done. Their ideas of the Captain's divinity were indeed lowered; for when they saw his blood, and heard his groans, they said, "No, this is not Orono:" yet they still regarded him as a chief of the first rank. His body was taken from the beach, and deposited in a cave above the village, from whence it was removed to an adjacent height, and there disposed of in the same way as the body of a native chief. It was cut in pieces, and the flesh, after being separated from the bones, was burnt; the bones being reserved as objects of veneration. This kind of funeral, however barbarous in our view, they regarded as the most honourable. The spot where the body was burnt, is described by Mr. Ellis, as a small inclosure, about 15 feet square, with a kind of raised hearth in the midst, where fragments of charcoal still remain.
But the natives had losses of their own to lament. Seventeen were slain at Kaavaroa, among whom were Kaneena, Koohowrooa, and other three chiefs; and at the observatory, where the commencement of a hostile attack made it necessary to fire on the assailants, eight more were shot, including three persons of rank. In that quarter, a truce was agreed to, through the medium of the friendly priests; and the firing ceased, on condition that our people should not be interrupted, in removing the observatory, tents, sails,
