^770. The carpenter having prepared two polls to be left as me-
>— — > morials of our having vifited this place, I ordered them to be
Tuefday 30. jnfcrjke(j wjtj1 the flip ’s name, and the year and month; one
■ of them I fet up at the watering-place, hoifting the Union
flag upon the top of i t ; and the other I carried over to the
ifland that lies neareft to the fea, called by the natives Mo-
T t tA R A . I went firft to the village or Hippah, accompanied
by Mr. Monkhoufe and Tupia, where I met with our old
man, and told him and feveral others, by means of Tupia,
that we Were come to fet up a mark upon the ifland,in order to
Ihow to any other Ihip which fhould happen to Come thither,
that we had been there before. To this they readily con-
fented, and promifed that they never would pull it down I I
then gave fomething to every one prefent;' and to the old
man I gave a filver threepence, dated 1736, and fome fpike
nails, with the king’s broad arrow cut deep upon them;
things which I thought molt likely to remain long among
them: I then took the poft to the higheft part of the ifland,
and after fixing it firmly in the ground, 1 hoilted upon it the
Union-flag, and honoured this inlet with the name o f Queen
Charlotte’s Sound, at the fame time taking formal pof-
ieflion o f this and the adjacent country, in the name and for
the ufe of his Majefty King George the Third. We then
drank a bottle of wine to her Majefty’s health, and gave the
bottle to the old man who had attended us up the hill, and
who was mightily delighted with hiS prefent.
While the poft was fetting up, we enquired of the old man
concerning the paflage into the eaftern fea, the exiftence of
which he confirmed; and then afked him about the land to
the S. W. o f the ftreight, where we were then fituated: this
land, he faid, Confifted of two Whennuas or iflands, which
might be circumnavigated in a few days, and which he
called Tovy Poenamjioo ; the literal tranfladon of this word
is,
is, “ the water of green talc:” and probably if we had under-
ftood him better, we Ihould have found that Tovy Poenammoo
was the name of fome particular place where they got the
green talc or ftone of which they make their ornaments and
tools, and not a general name for the whole fouthern diftridt:
he faid, there was alfo a third Whennua, on the eaft fide o f
the ftreight, the circumnavigation of which would take tip-
many moons: this he called E ah e in om auw e ; and to the-
land on the borders of the ftreight he gave the name of
T ieka Witte. Having fet up our poft, and procured this:
intelligence, we returned on board the fhip, and brought
the old man with us, who was attended by his canoe, in
which, after dinner, he returned home.
On the 31ft, having completed our wooding, and filled all Wedndijiv
our water cafks, I fent out two parties, one to cut and make
brooms, ' and another to catch filh. In the evening, we had.
a ftrong gale from the N, W. with fuch a heavy rain that our
little wild muficians on fhore fufpended their fong, which
till now we had conftantly heard during the night, with a
pleafure which, it was impoflible to lofe without regret.
On the ift, the gale inereafed to a ftorm, with heavy gufts February;
from the high land, one of which broke the hawfier, that Tharfday ,i'
we had fattened to the fhore, and obliged us to let go another
anchor. Towards midnight, the gale became more moderate,
but the rain continued with fuch violence, that the
brook which had fupplied us with water overflowed its
banks, and carried away ten fmall cafks which had been:
left there full of water, and notwithftanding we fearched the
whole cove, we could never recover one of them.
On the 3d, as I intended to fail the firft opportunity, I went Saturday »■
over to the Hippah on the eaft fide of the Sound, and pun
chafed a confiderable quantity of fglit and half-dried filh, for
feai
1770.
January»-
Tuefday 30«