p. 290.
p. 292.
p. 294.
p. 288.
are a flender race, moil of them under fix feet in heigh t; they are brifk .and
adlive, have good features, and not difagreeable .countenances; are friendly and
hofpitable to ilrangers, but, as faid before, very much addicted to pilfering.
Tatowing is much ufed here; the men from head to foot, the women but a
little: red and white paint is confidered as an ornament by both fexes.
Their clothing is a piece or two of quilted cloth, about fix feet by four, or
a mat: one piece wrapped round their loins, and another over their ihoulders,
make a complete drefs; their hair, in general, is black, the women wear it
long, and fometimes tied up on the crown of the head; but the men wear it
and their beards cut ihort. As harmlefs and friendly as thefe people feem to be,
they are not without offenfive weapons, fuch as ihort wooden clubs and fpears.
Their houfes are low miferable huts: the largeft feen was about fixty feet
long, eight or nine high in the middle, and three or four at each end. They
faw no houfehold utenfils amongft them, except gourds, and thefe but very
few. Not more than three or four canoes were feen on the whole ifland, and
thefe very mean.
Captain Cook farther fays, he ha« no doubt but that all the plantations here,
alfo, are private property, and that there are, as at Otaheite, and the other
iflands, Chiefs (Areekes) to whom thefe plantations belong. But of the power
or authority of thefe Chiefs, or of. the government of the people, he confefles
himfelf quite ignorant. Nor is he better acquainted with their religion.
The gigantic ftatues, before mentioned, are not, in his opinion, looked upon
as idols by the inhabitants, whatever they might have been at the time the
Dutch difcovered the ifland: on the contrary, he rather fuppofes the place»
where they are fixed to be burial places for certain tribes or families.
Such is the produce and ftate of Eafter Ifland, or Davis's Land, which is
fituated in latitude 270 5' 30” fouth, longitude. 109° 46' 20” weft; it is about
ten or twelve leagues in circuit; has a hilly and ftrong furface, and an iron-
bound ihore.
Finding
Finding the iflartd likely to afford fo fcanty a fupply of what they flood in p- 286.
need of, Captain Cook determined not to make-any longer flay in it, and accordingly
fet fail on the 16th, fleering N. N. W. intending to touch at the P- 297.
Marquefas, if he met with nothing before he got there. On the 7th of April
they fell in with thefe iflands, four of which were difcovered by Mendana, a
Spanifli navigator, in 1595: the firft ifle, being a new difcovery, 'they named p-298.
it Hood’s Ifland, after the young gentleman who firft faw it; the fecond was
that of St. Pedro; the third, La Dominica; the fourth, St. Chriftina; and
the fifth, La Magdalena. In the evening they anchored in Mendana’s Port, at p. 299.
the entrance of a bay, in the Ifland of St. Chriftina, in thirty-four fathom,
water, a fine fandy bottom.
The natives immediately put off to the fhip, as ufual, with whom they trafficked
for pigs, bread, fruit, and fifh; and found them as arrant thieves as any of
the inhabitants of the Paeifick Ocean. At firft they carried on this trade
both on board and aihore, with great fuccefs; fo that on the 10th the whole
crew enjoyed a meal of frefh meat. But the next morning they found the
fcene quite, changed. The nails and fpikes that purchafed a pig the evening
before, and which the natives were mad after, were now defpifed: the reafon
was, feveral of the young gentlemen having landed the preceding day, had
given away, in exchange, various articles which the people had not feen before
and which took with them more than nails, or more ufeful iron tools. But
what ruined their market moil, was, one of them giving for a pig. a very large
quantity of red feathers he had got at Amfterdam, which article they did not
know was. held in fuch eftimation here.
Their fine profpedl of getting a plentiful fupply of refrefhments from thefe
people being thus fruftrated, and as they had not wherewith to purchafe them;
at the fame time, finding that thefe iflands were not very convenient for taking
in wood and water, nor for giving the fhip the neeeflary repairs fhe wanted
Captain Cook refolved forthwith to leave them, and make once more for the
Society Ifles; endeavouring, in the paffage, to fall in with fome of thofe difcovered
by former’ navigators, particularly the Dutch.
p. 290.
P* 3°3*
P* 3°4*
p. 304.
I f l
P
I I
(iff i ■
1 1
1 1
| |
P p The
¡ I
I