 - and certain parts of the valley during the continuance
of a shower - are alike fenced about by the operation of the taboo.
    I witnessed a striking instance of its effects in the bay of Tior, my visit
to which place has been alluded to in a former part of this narrative. On that
occasion our worthy captain formed one of the party. He was a most insatiable
sportsman. Outward bound, and off the pitch of Cape Horn, he used to sit on the
taffrail, and keep the steward loading three or four old fowling-pieces, with
which he would bring down albatrosses, Cape pigeons, jays, petrels, and divers
other marine fowl, who followed chattering in our wake. The sailors were struck
aghast at his impiety, and one and all attributed our forty days' beating about
that horrid headland to his sacrilegious slaughter of these inoffensive birds.
    At Tior, he evinced the same disregard for the religious prejudices of the
islanders as he had previously shown for the superstitions of the sailors.
Having heard that there were a considerable number of fowls in the valley - the
progeny of some cocks and hens accidentally left there by an English vessel, and
which, being strictly tabooed, flew about almost in a wild state - he determined
to break through all restraints, and be the death of them. Accordingly, he
provided himself with a most formidable-looking gun, and announced his landing
on the beach by shooting down a noble cock that was crowing what proved to be
his own funeral dirge, on the limb of an adjoining tree. Taboo, shrieked the
affrighted savages. »Oh, hang your taboo,« says the nautical sportsman; »talk
taboo to the marines«; and bang went the piece again, and down came another
victim. At this the natives ran scampering through the groves, horror-struck at
the enormity of the act.
    All that afternoon the rocky sides of the valley rang with successive
reports, and the superb plumage of many a beautiful fowl was ruffled by the
fatal bullet. Had it not been that the French admiral, with a large party, was
then in the glen, I have no doubt that the natives, although their tribe was
small and dispirited, would have inflicted summary vengeance upon the man who
thus outraged their most sacred institutions; as it was, they contrived to annoy
him not a little.
    Thirsting with his exertions, the skipper directed his steps to a stream;
but the savages, who had followed at a little distance, perceiving his object,
rushed toward him and forced him away from its bank - his lips would have
