the number of the inhabitants that are at present upon it; for the far greater part of it that now lies quite waste, seemed to be as good a soil as those parts of it that are in cultivation. We must therefore conclude, that these people, from some cause which we were not long enough amongst them to be able to trace, do not increase in that proportion which would make it necessary to avail themselves of the extent of their island, toward raising a greater quantity of its vegetable production for their subsistence. Though I did not see a chief of any note, there were, however, several, as the natives informed us, who reside upon Atooi, and to whom they prostrate themselves as a mark of submission, which seems equivalent to the moe, moea, paid to the chiefs of the Friendly Islands, and is called here hamoea or moe. Whether they were at first afraid to show themselves, or happened to be absent, I cannot say; but after I had left the island, one of these great men made his appearance, and paid a visit to Captain Clerke on board the Discovery. He came off in a double canoe, and, like the king of the Friendly Islands, paid no regard to the small canoes that happened to lie in his way, but ran against or over them, without endeavouring in the least to avoid them. And it was not possible for these poor people to avoid him, for they could not manage their canoes, it being a necessary mark of their submission, that they should lie down till he had passed. His attendants helped him into the ship, and placed him on the gangway. Their care of him did not cease then, for they stood round him holding each other by the hands; nor would they suffer any one to come near him but Captain Clerke himself. He was a young man, clothed from head to foot, and accompanied by a young woman supposed to be his wife. His name was said to be Tamahano. Captain Clerke made him some suitable presents, and received from him in return a large bowl supported by two figures of men, the carving of which, both as to the design and execution, showed some degree of skill. This bowl, as our people were told, used to be filled with the kava, or ava (as it is called at Otaheite), which liquor they prepare and drink here, as at the other islands in this ocean. Captain Clerke could not prevail upon this great man to go below, nor to move from the place where his attendants had first fixed him. After staying some time in his ship, he was carried again into his canoe, and returned to the island, receiving the same honours from all the natives as when he came on board. The next day several messages were sent to Captain Clerke, inviting him to return the visit ashore, and acquainting him that the chief had prepared a large present on that occasion. But being anxious to get to sea and join the Resolution, the captain did not think it advisable to accept of the invitation. The very short and imperfect intercourse which we had with the natives put it out of our power to form any accurate judgment of the mode of government established amongst them; but from the general resemblance of customs, and particularly from what we observed of the honours paid to their chiefs, it seems reasonable to believe that it is of the same nature with that which prevails throughout all the islands we had hitherto visited, and probably their wars amongst themselves are equally frequent. This, indeed, might be inferred from the number of weapons which we found them possessed of, and from the excellent order these were kept in. But we had direct proof of the fact from their own confession; and, as we understood, these wars are between the different districts of their own island, as well as between it and their neighbours at Oneeleow and Orrehoua, we need scarcely assign any other cause besides this, to account for the appearance, already mentioned, of their population bearing no proportion to the extent of their ground capable of cultivation. Besides their spears or lances, made of a fine chesnut-coloured wood beautifully polished, some of which are barbed at one end, and flattened to a point at the other, they have a sort. of weapon which we had never seen before, and not mentioned by any navigator as used by the natives of the South Sea. It is somewhat like a dagger, in general about a foot and a half long, sharpened at one or both ends, and secured to the hand by a string. Its use is to stab at close fight, and it seems well adapted to the purpose. Some of these may be called double daggers, having a handle in the middle, with which they are better enabled to strike different ways. They have also bows and arrows; but, both from their apparent scarcity and their slender make, it may almost be presumed that they never use them in battle. The knife or saw formerly mentioned, with which they dissect the dead bodies, may also be ranked amongst their weapons, as they both strike and cut with it when closely engaged. It is a small flat wooden instrument of an oblong shape, about a foot long, rounded at the corners, with a handle almost like one sort of the patoos of New Zealand; but its edges are entirely surrounded with sharks' teeth strongly fixed to it and pointing outward, having commonly a hole in the handle through which passes a long string, which is wrapped several times round the wrist. We also suspected that they use slings on some occasions, for we got some pieces of the hæmatites, or blood-stone, artificially made of an oval shape, divided longitudinally, with a narrow groove in the middle of the convex part. To this the person who had one of them applied a cord of no great thickness, but would not part with it, though. he had no objection to part with the stone, which must prove fatal when thrown with any force, as it weighed a pound. We likewise saw some oval pieces of whetstone, well polished, but somewhat pointed toward each end, nearly resembling in shape some stones which we had seen at New Caledonia in 1774, and used there in their slings. DAGGERS AND FLESH KNIVES. What we could learn of their religious institutions, and the manner of disposing of their dead, which may properly be considered as closely connected, has been already mentioned. And as nothing more strongly points out the affinity between the manners of these people and of the Friendly and Society Islands, I must just mention some other circumstances to place this in a strong point of view, and, at the same time, to show how a few of the infinite modifications of which a few leading principles are capable, may distinguish any particular nation. The people of Tongataboo inter their dead in a very decent manner, and they also inter their human sacrifices; but they do not offer or expose any other animal or even vegetable to their gods, as far as we know. Those of Otaheite do not inter their dead, but expose them to waste by time and putrefaction, though the bones are afterwards buried; and, as this is the case, it is very remarkable that they should inter the entire bodies of their human sacrifices. They also offer other animals and vegetables to their gods, but are by no means attentive to the state of the sacred places where those solemn rites are performed; most of their morais being in a ruinous condition, and bearing evident marks of neglect. The people of Atooi, again, inter both their common dead and human sacrifices as at Tongataboo; but they resemble those of Otaheite in the slovenly state of their religious places, and in offering vegetables and animals to their gods. The taboo also prevails in Atooi in its full extent, and seemingly with much more rigour than even at Tongataboo. For the people here always asked, with great eagerness and signs of fear to offend, whether any particular thing which they desired to see, or we were unwilling to show, was taboo, or, as they pronounced the word, tafoo? The maia, raa, or forbidden articles at the Society Islands, though doubtless the same thing, did not seem to be so strictly observed by them, except with respect to the dead, about whom we thought them more superstitious than any of the others were. But these are circumstances with which we are not as yet sufficiently acquainted to be decisive about; and I shall only just observe, to show the similitude in other matters connected with religion, that the priests, or tahounas, here, are as numerous as at the other islands, if we may judge from our being able, during our stay, to distinguish several saying their poore, or prayer. But whatever resemblance we might discover in the general manners of the people of Atooi to those of Otaheite, these of course were less striking than the coincidence of language. Indeed, the languages of both places may be said to be almost word for word the same. It is true that we sometimes remarked particular words to be pronounced exactly as we had found at New Zealand and the Friendly Islands; but though all the four dialects are indisputably the same, these people in general have neither the strong guttural pronunciation of the former, nor a less degree of it which also distinguishes the latter; and they have not only adopted the soft mode of the Otaheiteans in avoiding harsh sounds, but the whole idiom of their language, using not only the same affixes and suffixes to their words, but the same measure and cadence in their songs, though in a manner somewhat less agreeable. There seems, indeed, at first hearing, some disagreement to the car of a stranger, but it ought to be considered that the people of Otaheite, from their frequent connexions with the English, had learned, in some measure, to adapt themselves to our scanty knowledge of their language, by using not only the most common, but even corrupted, expressions in conversation with us; whereas, when they conversed among themselves and used the several parts necessary to propriety of speech, they were scarcely at all understood by those amongst us who had made the greatest proficiency in their vocabulary. A catalogue of words was collected at Atooi by Mr. Anderson, who lost no opportunity of making our voyage useful to those who amuse themselves in tracing the migrations of the various tribes or families that have peopled the globe, by the most convincing of all arguments, that drawn from affinity of language. How shall we account for this nation's having spread itself in so many detached islands, so widely disjoined from each other, in every quarter of the Pacific Ocean? We find it from New Zealand in the south, as far as the Sandwich Islands to the north, and, in another direction, from Easter Island to the Hebrides; that is, over an extent of sixty degrees of latitude, or twelve hundred leagues north and south, and eighty-three degrees of longitude, or sixteen hundred and sixty leagues east and west! How much farther in either direction its colonies reach is not known; but what we know already, in consequence of this and our former voyage, warrants our pronouncing it to be, though perhaps not the most numerous, certainly by far the most extensive, nation upon earth. Had the Sandwich Islands been discovered at an early period by the Spaniards, there is little doubt that they would have taken advantage of so excellent a situation, and have made use of Atooi or some other of the islands as a refreshing place, in the ships that sail annually from Acapulco for Manilla. They lie almost midway between the first place and Guam, one of the Ladrones, which is at present their only port in traversing this vast ocean; and it would not have been a week's sail out of their common route to have touched at them, which could have been done without running the least hazard of losing the passage, as they are sufficiently within the verge of the easterly trade-wind. An acquaintance with the Sandwich Islands would have been cqually favourable to our Buccaneers, who used sometimes to pass from the coast of America to the Ladrones, with a stock of food and water scarcely sufficient to preserve life. Here they might always have found plenty, and have been within a month's sure sail of the very part of California which the Manilla ship is obliged to make, or else have returned to the coast of America, thoroughly refitted, after an absence of two months. How happy would Lord Anson have been, and what hardships would he have avoided, if he had known that there was a group of islands half way between America and Tinian, where all his wants could have been effectually supplied, and in describing which, the elegant historian of that voyage would have presented his reader with a more agreeable picture than I have been able to draw in this chapter! CHAPTER XIII.-OBSERVATIONS MADE AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, ON THE LONGITUDE, VARIATION OF THE COMPASS, AND TIDES.-PROSECUTION OF THE VOYAGE.-REMARKS ON THE MILDNESS OF THE WEATHER, AS FAR AS THE LATITUDE 44° north.-PAUCITY OF SEA BIRDS, IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.-SMALL SEA ANIMALS DESCRIBED.-ARRIVAL ON THE COAST OF AMERICA.-APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY. UNFAVOURABLE WINDS, AND BOISTEROUS WEATHER.-REMARKS ON MARTIN DE AGUILAR'S RIVER, AND JUAN de Fuca's PRETENDED STRAIT.—AN INLET DISCOVERED, WHERE THE SHIPS ANCHOR.-BEHAVIOUR OF THE NATIVES. AFTER the Discovery had joined us, we stood away to the northward, close hauled, with a gentle gale from the E.; and nothing occurring in this situation worthy of a place in my narrative, the reader will permit me to insert here the nautical observations which I had opportunities of making relative to the islands we had left; and which we had been fortunate enough to add to the geography of this part of the Pacific Ocean. The longitude of the Sandwich Islands was determined by seventy-two sets of lunar observations; some of which were made while we were at anchor in the road of Wymoa, others before we arrived and after we left it, and reduced to it by the watch or time-keeper. By the mean result of these observations, the longitude of the road is 200° 13′ 0′′ E. Time. Time-keeper Ulietea rate, The latitude of the road, by the mean of two meridian observations of the sun Jan. 18th. A. M. 19th. P. M. Greenwich rate, 28th. A. M. The observations for the variation of the compass did not agree very well among themselves. It is true, they were not all made exactly in the same spot. The different situations, however, could make very little difference. But the whole will be best scen by casting an eye on the following table. 28th. P. M. 21 36 Means of the above 21 29 Longitude. 200o 41' 200 20 199 56 Compass. Knight's. Martin's. Gregory's. Knight's East Variation. 9 20 10 4 40 10 2 10 9 1 20 9 1 25 10 18 5 11 21 15 10 40 0 202 0 0 21 56 15 N. Mean variation. 9° 51′ 38′′ 10 37 20 9 26 57 11 12 50 199 50 200 12. The tides at the Sandwich Islands are so inconsiderable, that with the great surf which broke against the shore, it was hardly possible to tell at any time whether we had high or low water, or whether it ebbed or flowed. On the south side of Atooi, we generally found a current setting to the westward or north-westward; but when we were at anchor off Oneeheow, the current set nearly N. W. and S. E., six hours one way, and six the other, and so strong as to make the ships tend, though the wind blew fresh. This was certainly a regular tide, and as far as I could judge, the flood came from the N. W. I now return to the progress of our voyage. On the 7th, being in the latitude of 29° N. and in the longitude of 200° E., the wind veered to S. E. This enabled us to steer N. E. and E.; which course we continued till the 12th, when the wind had veered round by the south and west, to north-east and east north-east. I then tacked, and stood to the northward, our latitude being 30° N. and our longitude 206° 15′ E. Notwithstanding our advanced latitude, and its being the winter season, we had only begun, for a few days past, to feel a sensation of cold in the mornings and evenings. This is a sign of the equal and lasting influence of the sun's heat, at all seasons, to 30° on each side the line. The disproportion is known to become very great after that. This must be attributed, almost entirely, to the direction of the rays of the sun, independent of the bare distance, which is by no means equal to the effect. On the 19th, being now in the latitude of 37 N., and in the longitude of 206° E., the wind veered to south-east; and I was enabled again to steer to the east, inclining to the north. We had, on the 25th, reached the latitude of 42o 30', and the longitude of 219°; and then we began to meet with the rock-weed, mentioned by the writer of Lord Anson's voyage, under the name of sea-leek, which the Manilla ships generally fall in with. Now and then a piece of wood also appeared. But if we had not known that the continent of North America was not far distant, we might, from the few signs of the vicinity of land hitherto met with, have concluded, that there was none within some thousand leagues of us. We had hardly seen a bird, or any other oceanic animal, since we left Sandwich Islands. On the 1st of March, our latitude being now 44° 49′ N., and our longitude 228°-E., we had one calm day. This was succeeded by a wind from the north, with which I stood to the east close hauled, in order to make the land. According to the charts, it ought not to have been far from us. It was remarkable that we should still be attended with such moderate and mild weather, so far to the northward, and so near the coast of an extensive continent, at this time of the year. The present season either must be uncommon for its mildness, or we can assign no reason why Sir Francis Drake should have met with such severe cold, about this latitude, in the month of June *. Viscaino, indeed, who was near the same place in the depth of winter, says little of the cold, and speaks of a ridge of snowy mountains, somewhere on the coast, as a thing rather remarkable t. Our seeing so few birds, in comparison of what we met with in the same latitudes to the south of the line, is another singular circumstance, which must either proceed from a scarcity of the different sorts, or from a deficiency of places to rest upon. From hence we may conclude, that beyond 40° in the southern hemisphere, the species are much more numerous, and the where they inhabit also more plentifully scattered about, than anywhere between the coast of California and Japan, in or near that latitude. During a calm, on the morning of the 2nd, some parts of the sea seemed covered with a kind of slime, and some small sea animals were swimming about. The most conspicuous of which were gelatinous, or medusa kind, almost globular; and another sort smaller, that had a white or shining appearance, and were very numerous. Some of these last were taken up, and put into a glass cup, with some salt water, in which they appeared like small scales, or bits of silver, when at rest, in a prone situation. When they began to swim about, which they did with equal ease, upon their back, sides, or belly, they emitted the brightest colours of the most precious gems, according to their position with respect to the light. Sometimes they appeared quite pellucid, at other times assuming various tints of blue, from a pale sapphirine to a deep violet colour, which were frequently mixed with a ruby, or opaline redness; and glowed with a strength sufficient to illuminate the vessel and water. These colours appeared most vivid when the glass was held to a strong light; and mostly vanished on the subsiding of the animals to the bottom, when they had a brownish cast. But, with candle light, the colour was chiefly a beautiful pale green, tinged with a burnished gloss; and, in the dark, it had a faint appearance of glowing fire. They proved to be a new species of oniscus, and, from their properties, were, by Mr. Anderson (to whom we owe this account of them), called Oniscus fulgens; being probably an animal which has a share in producing some sorts of that lucid appearance, often observed near ships at sea, in the night. On the same day two large birds settled on the water, near the ship. One of these was the Procellaria maxima (the quebrantahuessos), and the other, which was little more than half the size, seemed to be of the albatross kind. The upper part of the wings, and tip of the tail, were black, with the rest white; the bill yellowish; upon the whole, not unlike the sea-gull, though larger. On the 6th, at noon, being in the latitude of 44° 10′ N., and the longitude of 234° E., we saw two seals and several whales; and at day-break the next morning, the long-looked * See the account of Sir Francis's voyage, in Campbell's edition of Harris, vol. i. p. 18, and other collections. See Torquemada's Narrative of Viscaino's Expedition, in 1602 and 1603, in the second volume of Vanegas's History of California, English translation, from p. 229 to p. 308. |