1769. Banks's fpending a little time familiarly with him, and April. making him a few trifling prefents, he forgot the wrong that had been done him, and was perfectly reconciled. Wednef. 26. Thurf. 27. Upon this occasion it may be observed, that these people have a knowledge of right and wrong from the mere dictates of natural confcience; and involuntarily condemn themselves when they do that to others, which they would condemn others for doing to them. That Tubourai Tamaide felt the force of moral obligation, is certain; for the imputation of an action which he confidered as indifferent, would not, when it appeared to be groundlefs, have moved him with fuch excess of paffion. We must indeed estimate the virtue of these people, by the only standard of morality, the conformity of their condu&t to what in their opinion is right; but we must not haftily conclude that theft is a teftimony of the fame depravity in them that it is in us, in the instances in which our people were fufferers by their dishonesty; for their temptation was fuch as to furmount would be confidered as a proof of uncommon integrity among those who have more knowledge, better principles, and stronger motives to refift the temptations of illicit advantage: an Indian among penny knives, and beads, or even nails and broken glafs, is in the fame state of trial with the meaneft fervant in Europe among unlocked coffers of jewels and gold. On the 26th, I mounted fix fwivel guns upon the fort, which I was forry to fee struck the natives with dread: fome fishermen who lived upon the point, removed farther off, and Owhaw told us, by figns, that in four days we should fire great guns. On the 27th, Tubourai Tamaide, with a friend, who eat with a voracity that I never saw before, and the three women that ufually attended him, whose names were TERAPO, TIRAO, and OMIF, dined at the fort in the evening they took their leave, and fet out for the house which Tubourai Tamaide had fet up in the skirts of the wood; but in lefs than a quarter of an hour he returned in great emotion, and haflily feizing Mr. Banks's arm, made figns that he should follow him. Mr. Banks immediately complied, and they foon came up to a place where they found the fhip's butcher, with a reaping-hook in his hand: here the Chief stopped, and in a transport of rage which rendered his figns fcarcely intelligible, intimated that the butcher had threatened, or attempted, to cut his wife's throat with the reaping-hook. Mr. Banks then fignified to him, that if he could fully explain the offence, the man should be punished. Upon this he became more calm, and made Mr. Banks understand that the offender, having taken a fancy to a ftone hatchet which lay in his house, had offered to purchase it of his wife for a nail that fhe having refused to part with it upon any terms, he had catched it up, and throwing down the nail, threatened to cut her throat, if she made any refistance: to prove this charge, the hatchet and the nail were produced, and the butcher had fo little to say in his defence, that there was not the least reason to doubt of its truth. Mr. Banks having reported this matter to me, I took an opportunity, when the Chief and his women, with other Indians, were on board the ship, to call up the butcher, and after a recapitulation of the charge and the proof, I gave orders that he should be punished, as well to prevent other offences of the fame kind, as to acquit Mr. Banks of his promise; the Indians faw him ftripped and tied up to the rigging with a fixed attention, waiting in filent suspense for the event; but as foon as the first stroke was given, they interfered with great agitation, earnestly intreating that the rest of the punishment might be remitted to this, however, for many reafons, I could not confent; and when they found that they could not prevail by their interceffion, they gave vent to their pity by tears. t 1769. April. Their tears indeed, like thofe of children, were always ready to express any paffion that was ftrongly excited, and like thofe of children they also appeared to be forgotten as foon as shed; of which the following among many others, is a remarkable inftance. Friday 28. Very early in the morning of the 28th, even before it was day, a great number of them came down to the fort, and Terapo being obferved among the women on the outside of the gate, Mr. Banks went out and brought her in; he faw that the tears then stood in her eyes, and as foon as she entered, they began to flow in great 1769; great abundance: he enquired earnestly the cause, but April. instead of anfwering, fhe took from under her garment a fhark's tooth, and struck it fix or seven times into her head with great force; a profusion of blood followed, and fhe talked loud, but in a most melancholy tone, for fome minutes, without at all regarding his enquiries, which he repeated with still more impatience and concern, while the other Indians, to his great furprize, talked and laughed, without taking the least notice of her diftrefs. But her own behaviour was still more extraordinary. As foon as the bleeding was over, she looked up with a fmile, and began to collect fome fmall pieces of cloth, which during her bleeding she had thrown down to catch the blood; as foon as the had picked them all up, fhe carried them out of the tent, and threw them into the fea, carefully dispersing them abroad, as if the wifhed to prevent the fight of them from reviving the remembrance of what the had done. She then plunged into the river, and after having washed her whole body, returned to the tents with the fame gaiety and cheerfulness as if nothing had happened. It is not indeed strange that the forrows of these artlefs people fhould be tranfient, any more than that their paffions fhould be suddenly and strongly expreffed: what they feel they have never been taught either to disguise or fupprefs, and having no habits of thinking which perpetually recal the past, and anticipate the future, they are affected by all the changes of the paffing hour, and reflect the colour of the time, however frequently it may vary: they have no project which is to be pursued from day to day, the fubject of unremitted anxiety and folicitude, that firft rushes into the mind when they awake in the morning, and is laft difmiffed when they fleep at night. Yet if we admit that they are upon the whole happier than we, we must admit that the child is happier than the man, and that we are lofers by the perfection of our nature, the increase of our knowledge, and the enlargement of our views. Canoes were continually coming in during all this forenoon, and the tents at the fort were crowded with people of both sexes from different parts of the inland. ifland. I was myself on board the ship, but Mr. Mollineux, our mafter, who was one of those that made the last voyage in the Dolphin, went on fhore. As foon as he entered Mr. Banks's tent he fixed his eyes upon one of the women, who was fitting there with great composure among the reft, and immediately declared her to be the perfon who at that time was fupposed to be Queen of the island; she alfo, at the fame time, acknowledged him to be one of the strangers whom she had feen before. The attention of all prefent was now diverted from every other object, and wholly engaged in confidering a perfon who had made fo diftinguished a figure in the accounts that had been given of this island by its first discoverers; and we foon learnt that her name was OBEREA. She feemed to be about forty years of age, and was not only tall, but of a large make; her skin was white, and there was an uncommon intelligence and sensibility in her eyes: the appeared to have been handsome when he was young, but at this time little more than memorials of her beauty were left. As foon as her quality was known, an offer was made to conduct her to the hip. Of this the readily accepted, and came on board with two men and feveral women, who feemed to be all of her family; I received her with fuch marks of diftinction as I thought would gratify her moft, and was not sparing of my prefents, among which this auguft perfonage feemed particularly delighted with a child's doll. After fome time spent on board, I attended her back to the fhore; and as soon as we landed the prefented me with a hog, and several bunches of plantains, which fhe caufed to be carried from her canoes up to the fort in a kind of proceffion, of which the and myfelf brought up the rear. In our way to the fort we met Tootahah, who, though not King, appeared to be at this time invefted with the fovereign authority: he feemed not to be well pleased with the diftinction that was thewed the lady, and became fo jealous when the produced her doll, that to propitiate him it was thought proper to compliment him with another. At this time he thought fit to prefer a doll to a hatchet; but this preference arofe only from a childish jealousy, which could not be soothed but by a VOL. I. Gg gift 1769. April. 1769. April. gift of exactly the fame kind with that which had been prefented to Oberea; for dolls in a very fhort time were univerfally confidered as trifles of no value. . The men who had visited us from time to time had, without fcruple, eaten of our provifions; but the women had never yet been prevailed on to taste a morfel. To-day, however, though they refused the most preffing folicitations to dine with the Gentlemen, they afterwards retired to the fervants apartment, and eat of plantains very heartily; a mystery of female ceconomy here, which none of us could explain. On the 29th, not very early in the forenoon, Mr. Banks went to pay his court to Oberea, and was told that she was still asleep under the awning of her canoe: thither therefore he went, intending to call her up, a liberty which he thought he might take, without any danger of giving offence: but, upon looking into her chamber, to his great aftonishment he found her in bed with a handfome young fellow about five and twenty, whofe name was OBADE'E: he retreated with fome hafte and confufion, but was foon made to understand, that such amours gave no occasion to scandal, and that Obadée was univerfally known to have been selected by her as the object of her private favours. The lady being too polite to fuffer Mr. Banks to wait long in her antichamber, dreffed herself with more than ufual expedition, and, as a token of special grace, clothed him in a fuit of fine cloth, and proceeded with him to the tents. In the evening Mr. Banks paid a vifit to Tubourai Tamaide, as he had often done before, by candle light, and was equally grieved and furprized to find him and his family in a melancholy mood, and most of them in tears: he endeavoured in vain to discover the cause, and therefore his stay among them was but fhort. When he reported this circumstance to the officers of the fort, they recollected that Owhaw had foretold, that in four days we should fire our great guns; and as this was the eve of the third day, the fituation in which Tubourai Tamaide and his family had been found, had alarmed them. The centries therefore were doubled at the fort, and the Gentlemen flept under arms; at two in the morning, Mr. Banks himself went round the point, but found every thing fo quiet, that he gave up all fufpicions |