1773*
S eptember*
ropeans. If the knowledge of a few individuals can only
be acquired at fuch a price as the happinefs of nations, it
were better for the difcoverers, and the difcovered, that the
South Sea had flill remained unknown to Europe and its
reftlefs inhabitants.
1773-
fepTEMBEB
C H A P . X.
Account of our Tranfactions at the Society IJlands.
| .'■ HE wind with which we failed, from O-Taheitee,
-*■ frefhencd after fun-fet, and favoured our departure
from that happy ifland, which we flill difcerned by moonlight.
The next day, at eleven o’clock, we faw the ifle of Thurfdsy £
Huahine, which is about twenty-five leagues from Taheitee,
and was firft difcovered by captain Cook, on the 11 th of
July, 1769. A number of our people now felt the effefts
of their intercourfe with the women at Matavai Bay, and
had fymptoms of a difagreeable complaint. All the patients,
however, without exception, had this difeafe only in a very
flight and benign degree. The quefiion which has been agitated
between the French and Englifh navigators, concerning
the firft; introdu&ion of this evil to Taheitee, might be decided
very favourably for them both, by fuppofing the difeafe
to have exifted at Taheitee previous to their arrival.
The argument, that none of captain Wallis’s people received
the infedlion, does not feem to controvert this fup-
pofidon, but only proves, that the women, who proftituted
themfelves to his crew, were free from it ; which was per-
Vol. I. B b b haps