meo, again, are remarkable for producing greater quantities of yams than the other islands. And at Mourooa there is a particular bird, found upon the hills, much esteemed for its white feathers; at which place there is also said to be some of the apples, though it be the most remote of the Society Islands from Otaheite and Eimeo, where they are produced.

Though the religion of all the islands be the same, each of them has its particular, or tutelar god; whose names, according to the best information I could receive, are set down in the following list:

Besides the cluster of high islands from Mataia to Mourooa inclusive, the people of Otaheite are acquainted with a low uninhabited island, which they name Mopeeha, and seems to be Howe's Island, laid down to the westward of Mourooa, in our late charts of this ocean. To this the inhabitants of the most leeward islands sometimes go. There are also several low islands, to the north-eastward of Ota

11

heite,

heite, which they have sometimes visited, but not constantly; and are said to be only at the distance of two days' sail, with a fair wind. They were thus named to me:

Mataeeva,

called Oannah, in Dalrymple's letter to HawkesOanaa, worth.

Taboohoe,

Awehee,

Kaoora,

Orootooa,

Otavaoo, where are large pearls.

The inhabitants of these isles come more frequently to Otaheite and the other neighbouring high islands, from whose natives they differ in being of a darker colour, with a fiercer aspect, and differently punctured. I was informed, that at Mataeeva, and others of them, it is a custom for the men to give their daughters to strangers who arrive amongst them; but the pairs must be five nights lying near each other, without presuming to proceed farther. On the sixth evening, the father of the young woman treats his guest with food, and informs his daughter, that she must, that night, receive him as her husband. The stranger, however, must not offer to express the least dislike, though the bed-fellow allotted to him should be ever so disagreeable; for this is considered as an unpardonable affront, and is punished with death. Forty men of Bolabola, who, incited by curiosity, had roamed as far as Mataeeva in a canoe, were treated in this manner; one of them having incautiously mentioned his dislike of the woman. who fell to his lot, in the hearing of a boy, who informed her father. In consequence of this the Mateevans fell upon them; but these warlike people killed three times their own number; though with the loss of all their party, except five. These hid themselves in the woods, and took an opportunity, when the others were burying their dead, to enter some houses, where, having provided themselves with victuals and water, they carried them on board a canoe, in which they made their escape; and, after passing Mataia, at which they would not touch, at last arrived safe at Eimeo. The Bolabolans, however, were sensible enough that their travellers had been to blame; for a canoe from Ma

teeva, arriving some time after at Bolabola, so far were they from retaliating upon them for the death of their countrymen, that they acknowledged they had deserved their fate, and treated their visitors kindly.

These low isles are, doubtless, the farthest navigation which those of Otaheite and the Society Islands perform at present. It seems to be a groundless supposition, made by Mons. de Bougainville, that they made voyages of the prodigious extents he mentions; for I found, that it is reckoned a sort of a prodigy, that a canoe, once driven by a storm from Otaheite, should have fallen in with Mopeeha, or Howe's Island, though so near, and directly to leeward. The knowledge they have of other distant islands is, no doubt, traditional; and has been communicated to them by the natives of those islands, driven accidentally upon their coasts, who, besides giving them the names, could easily inform them of the direction in which the places lie from whence they came, and of the number of days they had been upon the sea. In this manner, it may be supposed, that the natives of Wateeoo have increased their catalogue by the addition of Otaheite and its neighbouring isles, from the people we met with there, and also of the other islands these had heard of. We may thus account for that extensive knowledge attributed by the gentlemen of the Endeavour to Tupia in such matters. And, with all due deference to his veracity, I presume that it was, by the same means of information, that he was able to direct the ship to Oheteroa, without having ever been there himself, as he pretended; which, on many accounts, is very improbable."

SECTION

5. See Bougainville's Voyage autour du Monde, p. 228, where we are told that these people sometimes navigate at the distance of more than three hundred leagues.-D.

6 Though much of Mr Anderson's account of Otaheite, &c. be very similar to what has been given in the preceding relations, yet it must be allowed to possess too great merit to warrant omission or alteration. He has been fortunate, certainly, in delineating the manners and opinions of the people; and perhaps, on the whole, his information bears more decisive marks of care and intimate acquaintance than any other we possess on the subject. This, it may be said, is no very high merit; because, having the benefit of pretty extensive labours, he had only to compare a picture with its original, as presented to his notice, and was under no necessity of dividing his attention among a multiplicity of unconnected objects. Still this remark is not just, unless it be shewn that he has merely

affirmed

L

SECTION X.

Progress of the Voyage, after leaving the Society Islands.Christmas Island discovered, and Station of the Ships there. -Boats sent ashore.-Great Success in catching Turtle.An Eclipse of the Sun observed.-Distress of two Seamen who had lost their Way-Inscription left in a Bottle.— Account of the Island.-Its Soil.-Trees and Plants.- Birds. -Its Size.-Form.-Situation.-Anchoring Ground.

AFTER leaving Bolabola, I steered to the northward, closehauled, with the wind between N.E. and E., hardly ever having it to the southward of E., till after we had crossed

ance.

the

affirmed the likeness or unlikeness he observed betwixt them, and specified the peculiarities of resemblance or dissimilarity. In place of doing so, however, he has executed another picture. But such analogical reasoning is more fanciful than judicious; and even were it correctly applicable to the case, it is evident, that no one would be entitled to decide as to the respective merits of the productions, who was not familiar with the objects which they represented. Now, the fact is, that Mr Anderson had no opportunity of availing himself of what others had done before, unless we except the avowedly imperfect delineations in Hawkesworth's Narrative, from which we can scarcely believe he could derive material assistThe reader will understand this at once, by considering, that neither Cook's account of his second voyage, nor the productions of Mr Forster, had been published before the commencement of this expedition. It may, however, be imagined, that Cook himself would communicate to Mr Anderson such particulars of his former journal as were likely to aid him in his present researches. Even this supposition is exceedingly unnecessary; because, it appears from the Memoir of Cook, in the Biog. Brit. that that officer rather received assistance from Mr Anderson during the former navigation; and we shall afterwards see reason to consider him as possessed of abilities, and a talent for observation, which rendered him very independent of others. His description, therefore, is to be judged an original one, and as such is entitled to the highest distinction. It may indeed be somewhat chargeable with the exaggerations of a warm fancy, especially as to what is said of the religious notions of these islanders, which perhaps assume more of system and regularity through the medium of Mr A.'s report, than it is altogether likely would be found to exist in their popular creeds. This is easily understood, without any aspersion on his veracity. For, as it will be allowed that he possessed greater compass of mind, and was more in the habit of exercising thought than the people whose opinions he described, so it may thence be readily inferred, that, what to them was confused and unconnected, as is commonly the case with the superstitions of the illiterate in all countries,

the Line, and had got into N. latitudes. So that our course, made good, was always to the W. of N., and sometimes no better than N.W.

Though seventeen months had now elapsed since our departure from England, during which, we had not, upon the whole, been unprofitably employed, I was sensible, that with regard to the principal object of my instructions, our voyage was, at this time, only beginning; and, therefore, my attention to every circumstance that might contribute toward our safety and our ultimate success, was now to be called forth anew. With this view I had examined into the state of our provisions at the last islands; and, as soon as I had left them, and got beyond the extent of my former discoveries, I ordered a survey to be taken of all the boatswain's and carpenter's stores that were in the ships, that I might be fully informed of the quantity, state, and condition of every article; and, by that means, know how to use them to the greatest advantage.

Before I sailed from the Society Islands, I lost no opportunity of enquiring of the inhabitants, if there were any islands in a N. or N.W. direction from them; but I did not find that they knew of any. Nor did we meet with any thing that indicated the vicinity of land, till we came to about the latitude of 8° S., where we began to see birds, such as boobies, tropic, and men-of-war birds, tern, and some other sorts. At this time our longitude was 205° E. Mendana, in his first voyage in 1568,' discovered an island which he named Isla de Jesus, in latitude 6° 45′ S., and 1450 leagues from Callao, which is 200° E. longitude from Greenwich. We crossed this latitude near a hundred leagues to the eastward of this longitude, and saw there many of the above-mentioned birds, which are seldom known to go very far from land.

In the night, between the 22d and 23d, we crossed the Line in the longitude of 203° 15′ E. Here the variation of the compass was 6° 30' E. nearly.

On

his philosophical genius, working on obvious and remote analogies, wrought into order, and stamped with the semblance, at least, of theoretical consistency. We had at one time purposed to offer a few remarks on certain parts of his description, but, on second thoughts, it occurred, that, on the whole, the subject had received a very ample share of attention in the course of these voyages.-E.

'See Dalrymple's Collection, vol. i. p. 45.