mat, and then squatted herself down, on her heels, on the top of all; thus making a kind of Dutch warming-pan, on which she sat as close as a hare on her seat.  I should hardly have mentioned this operation, if I had thought it had no other view than to warm the old woman’s backside.  I rather suppose it was intended to cure some disorder she might have on her, which the steams arising from the green celery might be a specific for.  I was led to think so by there being hardly any celery in the place, we having gathered it long before; and grass, of which there was great plenty, would have kept the stones from burning the mat full as well, if that had been all that was meant.  Besides, the woman looked to me sickly, and not in a good state of health.

Mr Wales, from time to time, communicated to me the observations he had made in this Sound for determining the longitude, the mean results of which give 174 deg. 25’ 7” 1/2 east, for the bottom of Ship Cove, where the observations were made; and the latitude of it is 41 deg. 5’ 50” 1/2 south.  In my chart, constituted in my former voyage, this place is laid down in 184 deg. 54’ 30” west, equal to 175 deg. 5’ 30” east.  The error of the chart is therefore 0 deg. 40’ 0”, and nearly equal to what was found at Dusky Bay; by which it appears that the whole of Tavai-poenamoo is laid down 40’ too far east in the said chart, as well as in the journal of the voyage.  But the error in Eaheino-mauwe, is not more than half a degree, or thirty minutes; because the distance between.  Queen Charlotte’s Sound and Cape Palliser has been found to be greater by 10’ of longitude than it is laid down in the chart.  I mention these errors, not from a fear that they will affect either navigation or geography, but because I have no doubt of their existence; for, from the multitude of observations which Mr Wales took, the situation of few parts of the world is better ascertained than Queen Charlotte’s Sound.  Indeed, I might, with equal truth, say the same of all the other places where we made any stay; for Mr Wales, whose abilities are equal to his assiduity, lost no one observation that could possibly be obtained.  Even the situation of those islands, which we passed without touching at them, is, by means of Kendal’s watch, determined with almost equal accuracy.  The error of the watch from Otaheite to this place was only 43’ 39” 1/2 in longitude, reckoning at the rate it was found to go at, at that island and at Tanna; but by reckoning at the rate it was going when last at Queen Charlotte’s Sound, and from the time of our leaving it, to our return to it again, which was near a year, the error was 19’ 31”, 25 in time, or 4 deg. 52’ 48” 1/4 in longitude.  This error cannot be thought great, if we consider the length of time, and that we had gone over a space equal to upwards of three-fourths of the equatorial circumference of the earth, and through all the climates and latitudes from 9 deg. to 71 deg..  Mr Wales found its rate of going here to be that of gaining 12",576, on mean time, per day.