The case

The chief, with a mixture of confusion and concern, took Mr. Banks by the hand, and led him to a large quantity of cloth, which lay at the other end of the house: this he offered to him piece by piece, intimating by signs, that if that would atone for the wrong which had been done, he might take any part of it, or, if he pleased, the whole. Mr. Banks put it by, and gave him to understand that he wanted nothing but what had been dishonestly taken away. Tubourai Tamaide then went hastily out, leaving Mr. Banks with his wife Tomio, who, during the whole scene of terror and confusion, had kept constantly at his side, and intimating his desire that he should wait there till his return. Mr. Banks accordingly sat down, and conversed with her, as well as he could by signs, about half an hour. The chief then came back with the snuff-box and the case of the opera-glass in his hand, and, with a joy in his countenance that was painted with a strength of expression which distinguishes these people from all others, delivered them to the owners. of the opera-glass, however, upon being opened, was found to be empty; upon this discovery, his countenance changed in a moment; and catching Mr. Banks again by the hand, he rushed out of the house, without uttering any sound, and led him along the shore, walking with great rapidity: when they had got about a mile from the house, a woman met him and gave him a piece of cloth, which he hastily took from her, and continued to press forward with it in his hand. Dr. Solander and Mr. Monkhouse had followed them, and they came at length to a house where they were received by a woman, to whom he gave the cloth, and intimated to the gentlemen that they should give her some beads. They immediately complied; and the beads and cloth being deposited upon the floor, the woman went out, and in about half an hour returned with the opera-glass, expressing the same joy upon the occasion that had before been expressed by the chief. The beads were now returned, with an inflexible resolution not to accept them; and the cloth was, with the same pertinacity, forced upon Dr. Solander, as a recompense for the injury that had been done him. He could not avoid accepting the cloth, but insisted in his turn upon giving a new present of beads to the woman. It will not, perhaps, be easy to account for all the steps that were taken in the recovery of the glass and snuff-box; but this cannot be thought strange, considering that the scene of action was among a people whose language, policy, and connexions, are even now but imperfectly known; upon the whole, however, they show an intelligence and influence which would do honour to any system of government, however regular and improved. In the evening, about six o'clock, we returned to the ship.

CHAPTER IX. — A PLACE FIXED UPON FOR AN OBSERVATORY AND FORT: AN EXCURSION INTO THE WOODS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.-THE FORT ERECTED: A VISIT FROM SEVERAL CHIEFS ON BOARD AND AT THE FORT, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MUSIC OF THE NATIVES, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY DISPOSE OF THEIR DEAD.

On the next morning, Saturday the 15th, several of the chiefs, whom we had seen the day before, came on board, and brought with them hogs, bread-fruit, and other refreshments, for which we gave them hatchets and linen, and such things as seemed to be most acceptable.

As in my excursion to the westward, I had not found any more convenient harbour than that in which we lay, I determined to go on shore, and fix upon some spot, commanded by the ship's guns, where I might throw up a small fort for our defence, and prepare for making our astronomical observation. I therefore took a party of men, and landed without delay, accompanied by Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, and the astronomer, Mr. Green. We soon fixed upon a part of the sandy beach, on the N.E. point of the bay, which was in every respect convenient for our purpose, and not near any habitation of the natives. Having marked out the ground that we intended to occupy, a small tent belonging to Mr. Banks was set up, which had been brought on shore for that purpose. By this time a great number of the people had gathered about us; but, as it appeared, only to look on, there not being a single weapon of any kind among them. I intimated, however, that none of them were to come

within the line I had drawn, except one who appeared to be a chief, and Owhaw. To these two persons I addressed myself by signs, and endeavoured to make them understand that we wanted the ground which we had marked out to sleep upon for a certain number of nights, and that then we should go away. Whether I was understood I cannot certainly determine; but the people behaved with a deference and respect that at once pleased and surprised us. They sat down peaceably without the circle, and looked on without giving

us any interruption till we had done, which was upwards of two hours. As we had seen no poultry, and but two hogs, in our walk when we were last on shore at this place, we suspected that, upon our arrival, they had been driven farther up the country; and the rather, as Owhaw was very importunate with us, by signs, not to go into the woods, which, however, and partly for these reasons, we were determined to do. Having, therefore, appointed the thirteen marines and a petty officer to guard the tent, we set out, and a great number of the natives joined our party. As we were crossing a little river that lay in our way, we saw some ducks, and Mr. Banks, as soon as he had got over, fired at them, and happened to kill three at one shot: this struck them with the utmost terror, so that most of them fell suddenly to the ground, as if they also had been shot at the same discharge. It was not long, however, before they recovered from their fright, and we continued our route; but we had not gone far before we were alarmed by the report of two pieces, which were fired by the guard at the tent. We had then straggled a little distance from each other, but Owhaw immediately called us together, and, by waving his hand, sent away every Indian who followed us except three, each of whom, as a pledge of peace on their part, and an entreaty that there might be peace on ours, hastily broke a branch from the trees, and came to us with it in their hands. As we had too much reason to fear that some mischief had happened, we hasted back to the tent, which was not distant above half a mile, and when we came up, we found it entirely deserted, except by our own people.

It appeared that one of the Indians, who remained about the tent after we left it, had watched his opportunity, and, taking the sentry unawares, had snatched away his musket. Upon this the petty officer, a midshipman, who commanded the party, perhaps from a sudden fear of farther violence, perhaps from the natural petulance of power newly acquired, and perhaps from a brutality in his nature, ordered the marines to fire. The men, with as little consideration or humanity as the officer, immediately discharged their pieces among the thickest of the flying crowd, consisting of more than a hundred; and observing that the

thief did not fall, pursued him, and shot him dead. We afterwards learnt that none of the others were either killed or wounded.

Owhaw, who had never left us, observing that we were now totally deserted, got together a few of those who had fled, though not without some difficulty, and ranged them about us. We endeavoured to justify our people as well as we could, and to convince the Indians that, if they did no wrong to us, we should do no wrong to them. They went away without any appearance of distrust or resentment; and having struck our tent, we returned to the ship, but by no means satisfied with the transactions of the day.

Upon questioning our people more particularly, whose conduct they soon perceived we could not approve, they alleged that the sentinel, whose musket was taken away, was violently assaulted and thrown down, and that a push was afterwards made at him by the man who took the musket before any command was given to fire. It was also suggested, that Owhaw had suspicions, at least, if not certain knowledge, that something would be attempted against our people at the tent, which made him so very earnest in his endeavours to prevent our leaving it; others imputed his importunity to his desire that we should confine ourselves to the beach; and it was remarked, that neither Owhaw, nor the chiefs who remained with us after he had sent the rest of the people away, would have inferred the breach of peace from the firing at the tent, if they had had no reason to suspect that some injury had been offered by their countrymen; especially as Mr. Banks had just fired at the ducks and yet that they did infer a breach of peace from that incident was manifest from their waving their hands for the people to disperse, and instantly pulling green branches from the trees. But what were the real circumstances of this unhappy affair, and whether either, and which of these conjectures, were true, can never certainly be known.

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The next morning but few of the natives were seen upon the beach, and not one of them came off to the ship. This convinced us that our endeavours to quiet their apprehensions had not been effectual; and we remarked with particular regret that we were deserted even by Owhaw, who had hitherto been so constant in his attachment, and so active in renewing the peace that had been broken. Appearances being thus unfavourable, I warped the ship nearer to the shore, and moored her in such a manner as to command all the N.E. part of the bay, particularly the place which I had marked out for the building a fort. In the evening, however, I went on shore with only a boat's crew, and some of the gentlemen; the natives gathered about us, but not in the same number as before; there were, I believe, between thirty and forty; and they trafficked with us for cocoa-nuts and other fruit, to all appearance as friendly as ever.

On the 17th, early in the morning, we had the misfortune to lose Mr. Buchan, the person whom Mr. Banks had brought out as a painter of landscapes and figures. He was a sober, diligent, and ingenious young man, and greatly regretted by Mr. Banks; who hoped, by his means, to have gratified his friends in England with representations of this country and its inhabitants, which no other person on board could delineate with the same accuracy and elegance. He had always been subject to epileptic fits, one of which seized him on the mountains of Terra del Fuego; and this disorder being aggravated by a bilious complaint, which he contracted on board the ship, at length put an end to his life. It was at first proposed to bury him on shore, but Mr. Banks thinking that it might perhaps give offence to the natives, with whose customs we were then wholly unacquainted, we committed his body to the sea, with as much decency and solemnity as our circumstances and situation would admit. In the forenoon of this day we received a visit from Tubourai Tamaide and Tootahah, our chiefs from the west. They brought with them, as emblems of peace, not branches of plantain, but two young trees, and would not venture on board till these had been received, having probably been alarmed by the mischief which had been done at the tent. Each of them also brought, as propitiatory gifts, some bread-fruit, and a hog ready-dressed: this was a most acceptable present, as we perceived that hogs were not always to be got; and in return we gave to each of our noble benefactors a hatchet and a nail. In the evening we went on shore, and set up a tent, in which Mr. Green and myself spent the night, in order to observe an eclipse of the first satellite of Jupiter; but the weather becoming cloudy, we were disappointed.

On the 18th, at daybreak, I went on shore, with as many people as could possibly be spared from the ship, and began to erect our fort. While some were employed in throwing up intrenchments, others were busy in cutting pickets and fascines, which the natives, who soon gathered round us as they had been used to do, were so far from hindering, that many of them voluntarily assisted us, bringing the pickets and fascines from the wood where they had been cut, with great alacrity. We had, indeed, been so scrupulous of invading their property, that we purchased every stake which was used upon this occasion, and cut down no tree till we had first obtained their consent. The soil where we constructed our fort was sandy, and this made it necessary to strengthen the intrenchments with wood; three sides were to be fortified in this manner; the fourth was bounded by a river, upon the banks of which I proposed to place a proper number of water-casks. This day we served pork to the ship's company for the first time; and the Indians brought down so much bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts, that we found it necessary to send away part of them unbought, and to acquaint them by signs that we should want no more for two days to come. Everything was purchased this day with beads: a single bead, as big as a pea, being the purchase of five or six cocoa-nuts, and as many of the bread-fruit. Mr. Banks's tent was got up before night within the works, and he slept on shore for the first time. Proper sentries were placed round it, but no Indian attempted to approach it the whole night.

The next morning, our friend Tubourai Tamaide made Mr. Banks a visit at the tent, and brought with him not only his wife and family, but the roof of a house, and several materials for setting it up, with furniture and implements of various kinds, intending, as we understood him, to take up his residence in our neighbourhood. This instance of his confidence and good-will gave us great pleasure, and we determined to strengthen his attachment to us by every means in our power. Soon after his arrival, he took Mr. Banks by the hand, and leading him out of the line, signified that he should accompany him into the woods. Mr. Banks readily consented; and having walked with him about a quarter of a mile, they arrived at a kind of awning which he had already set up, and which seemed to be his occasional habitation. Here he unfolded a bundle of his country cloth, and taking out two garments, one of red cloth, and the other of very neat matting, he clothed Mr. Banks in them, and, without any other ceremony, immediately conducted him back to the tent. His attendants soon after brought him some pork and bread-fruit, which he ate, dipping his meat into salt-water instead of sauce: after his meal, he retired to Mr. Banks's bed, and slept about an hour. In the afternoon, his wife Tomio brought to the tent a young man about two-and-twenty years of age, of a very comely appearance, whom they both seemed to acknowledge as their son, though we afterwards discovered that he was not so. In the evening this young man and another chief, who had also paid us a visit, went away to the westward, but Tubourai Tamaide and his wife returned to the awning in the skirts of the wood.

Our surgeon, Mr. Monkhouse, having walked out this evening, reported, that he had seen the body of the man who had been shot at the tents, which he said was wrapped in cloth, and placed on a kind of bier, supported by stakes, under a roof that seemed to have been set up for the purpose: that near it were deposited some instruments of war and other things, which he would particularly have examined but for the stench of the body, which was intolerable. He said, that he saw also two more sheds of the same kind, in one of which were the bones of a human body that had lain till they were quite dry. We discovered afterwards, that this was the way in which they usually disposed of their dead.

A kind of market now began to be kept just without the lines, and was plentifully supplied with everything but pork. Tubourai Tamaide was our constant guest, imitating our manners, even to the using of a knife and fork, which he did very handily.

As my curiosity was excited by Mr. Monkhouse's account of the situation of the man who had been shot, I took an opportunity to go with some others to see it. I found the shed under which his body lay, close by the house in which he resided when he was alive, some others being not more than ten yards distant; it was about fifteen feet long, and eleven broad, and of a proportionable height: one end was wholly open, and the other end, and the two sides, were partly enclosed with a kind of wicker-work. The bier on which

the corpse was deposited, was a frame of wood like that in which the sea-beds, called cots, are placed, with a matted bottom, and supported by four posts, at the height of about five feet from the ground. The body was covered first with a mat, and then with white cloth; by the side of it lay a wooden mace, one of their weapons of war, and near the head of it, which lay next to the close end of the shed, lay two cocoa-nut shells, such as are sometimes used to carry water in; at the other end a bunch of green leaves, with some dried twigs, all tied together, were stuck in the ground, by which lay a stone about as big as a cocoanut: near these lay one of the young plantain-trees which are used for emblems of peace, and close by it a stone axe. At the open end of the shed also hung, in several strings, a great number of palm-nuts, and without the shed was stuck upright in the ground the stem of a plantain-tree about five feet high, upon the top of which was placed a cocoa-nut shell full of fresh water: against the side of one of the posts hung a small bag, containing a few pieces of bread-fruit ready roasted, which were not all put in at the same time, for some of them were fresh, and others stale. I took notice that several of the natives observed us with a mixture of solicitude and jealousy in their countenances, and by their gestures expressed uneasiness when we went near the body, standing themselves at a little distance while we were making our examination, and appearing to be pleased when we came away.

Our residence on shore would by no means have been disagreeable, if we had not been incessantly tormented by the flies, which, among other mischief, made it almost impossible for Mr. Parkinson, Mr. Banks's natural-history painter, to work; for they not only covered his subject so as that no part of its surface could be seen, but even ate the colour off the paper as fast as he could lay it on. We had recourse to mosquito-nets and fly-traps, which, though they made the inconvenience tolerable, were very far from removing it.

On the 22nd, Tootahah gave us a specimen of the music of this country: four persons performed upon flutes, which had only two stops, and therefore could not sound more than four notes, by half tones: they were sounded like our German flutes, except that the performer, instead of applying it to his mouth, blew into it with one nostril, while he stopped the other with his thumb: to these instruments four other persons sung, and kept very good time; but only one tune was played during the whole concert.

Several of the natives brought us axes, which they had received from on board the Dolphin, to grind and repair; but among others there was one which became the subject of much speculation, as it appeared to be French: after much inquiry, we learnt that a ship had been here between our arrival and the departure of the Dolphin, which we then conjectured to have been a Spaniard, but now know to have been the Boudeuse, commanded by M. Bougainville.

CHAPTER X.-AN EXCURSION TO THE EASTWARD, AN ACCOUNT OF SEVERAL INCIDENTS THAT HAPPENED BOTH ON BOARD AND ON SHORE, AND OF THE FIRST INTERVIEW WITH OBEREA, THE PERSON WHO, WHEN THE DOLPHIN WAS HERE, WAS SUPPOSED TO BE QUEen of the ISLAND, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE FORT.

ON the 24th, Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander examined the country for several miles along the shore to the castward: for about two miles it was flat and fertile; after that the hills stretched quite to the water's edge, and a little farther ran out into the sea, so that they were obliged to climb over them. These hills, which were barren, continued for about three miles more, and then terminated in a large plain, which was full of good houses, and people who appeared to live in great affluence. In this place there was a river, much more considerable than that at our fort, which issued from a deep and beautiful valley, and, where our travellers crossed it, though at some distance from the sea, was near one hundred yards wide. About a mile beyond this river the country became again barren, the rocks everywhere projecting into the sea, for which reason they resolved to return. Just as they had formed this resolution, one of the natives offered them refreshment, which they accepted. They found this man to be of a kind that has been described by various authors, as mixed