*77S- canoe, with only one of his countrymen to affift him. A
September. j |
little while after our boat returned from the Adventure,
and brought on board O-Mai, the only native who had embarked
in that vefTel with a view to go to England. He
Raid on board our fliip till We reached Rai’etea, whither
we now dire61 ed our courfe. As foon as wé were come to
an anchor there, he returned on board the Adventure, and
afterwards came to England in her, and has-for fome' time
engroffed the attention of the curious. He feemed to be
one of the common people at that time, as he did not
afpire to the captain’s company, but preferred that of the
armourer and the common feamen. But when he reached
the Cape of Good Hope, where the captain dreffed him in
his own clothes, and introduced him in the bed companies,
he declared he was not a towtow, which is the denomination
of the lowed clafs, and affumed the character
of a boa, or attendant upon the king. The world hath
been amufed at times with different fabulous accounts concerning
this man, among which we need only mention
the ridiculous dory of his being a “ Pried of the S u n a
character which has never exifted in the idands from
whence he came. His dature was tall, but very dim, and
his hands remarkably fmall. His features did not convey
an idea of that beauty which characterizes the men at O-
Taheitee ; on the contrary, we do him no injudice to adert
. that, among all the inhabitants of Taheitee and the Society
Ides,
Ides, we have leen few individuals fo ill-favoured as him-
felf. His colour was likewife the darked hue of the
common clafs of people, and correfponded by no means
with the rank he afterwards affumed, It was certainly
unfortunate that fuch a man Ihould be feleCted as a fpe-
citnen of a people who have been judly extolled by all
navigators, as remarkably well featured and coloured,
conddering the climate in which they live. The qualities
of his heart and head refembled thofe of his countrymen in
general; he was not an extraordinary genius like Tupaia,
but he was warm in his affefiions, grateful, and humane ;
he was polite, intelligent, lively, and volatile. For a further
account of O-Mai, I refer the reader to the preface,
where I have mentioned his day in England, his progrefs
in knowledge, and his equipment at his return.
Having left Huahine we failed to the wedward, and
doubled the fouth end of an idand, difeovered by captain
Cook in 1769, which all the natives of Taheitee, and the
Society Ides call O-Raietea, but which (upon what foundation
I know not) is named Ulietea in captain Cook’s
charts *. The next morning we anchored in an opening,
of the reef, and fpent the whole day in warping into Ha-
maneno harbour. The country hereabouts afforded a
prOfpeCt much refembling Taiieitee ; for the idand being;
about three times the fize of Huahine, had much broader-
* See Hawkefworth, vol. II. p. 255, 260.
plains,.
»773- .
September»
Wednefday 8,