AND

COLLECTION

OF

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.

PART III.-BOOK I.

CHAP. IV.

SECTION XVII.

A particular Description of the Island of Otaheite; its Produce and Inhabitants; their Dress, Habitations, Food, Domestic Life and Amusements.

WE

E found the longitude of Port Royal bay, in this island, as settled by Captain Wallis, who discovered it on the 9th of June, 1767, to be within half a degree of the truth. We found Point Venus, the northern extremity of the island, and the eastern point of the bay, to lie in the longitude of 149° 13', this being the mean result of a great number of observations made upon the spot. The island is surrounded by a reef of coral rock, which forms several excellent bays and harbours, some of which have been particularly described, where there is room and depth of water for any number of the largest ships. Port Royal bay, called by the natives Matavai, which is not inferior to any in Otaheite, may easily be known by a very high mountain in the middle of the island, which bears due south from Point Venus. To sail into it, either keep the west point of the reef that lies before Point Venus, close on board, or give it a birth of near half a mile, in order to avoid a small shoal of coral rocks,

VOL. XIII. PART I.

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rocks, on which there is but two fathoms and a half of water. The best anchoring is on the eastern side of the bay, where there is sixteen and fourteen fathom upon an oosy bottom. The shore of the bay is a fine sandy beach, behind which runs a river of fresh water, so that ber of ships may water here without incommoding each other; but the only wood for firing, upon the whole island, is that of fruit-trees, which must be purchased of the natives, or all hope of living upon good terms with them given up.

1

The face of the country, except that part of it which borders upon the sea, is very uneven; it rises in ridges that run up into the middle of the island, and there form mountains, which may be seen at the distance of sixty miles: Between the foot of these ridges and the sea, is a border of low land, surrounding the whole island, except in a few places where the ridges rise directly from the sea: The border of low land is in different parts of different breadths, but no where more than a mile and a half. The soil, except upon the very tops of the ridges, is extremely rich and fertile, watered by a great number of rivulets of excellent water, and covered with fruit-trees of various kinds, some of which are of a stately growth and thick foliage, so as to form one continued wood; and even the tops of the ridges, though in general they are bare, and burnt up by the sun, are, in some parts, not without their produce.

The low land that lies between the foot of the ridges and the sea, and some of the vallies, are the only parts of the island that are inhabited, and here it is populous; the houses do not form villages or towns, but are ranged along the whole border at the distance of about fifty yards from each other, with little plantations of plantains, the tree which furnishes them with cloth. The whole island, according to Tupia's account, who certainly knew, could furnish six thousand seven hundred and eighty fighting men, from which the number of inhabitants may easily be computed.'

The

'It is questionable if the whole existing population of the island amount to the number now mentioned. Such has been the decrease of its inte resting but licentious inhabitants since the time of Cook, to which, it is melancholy to be obliged to say, their intercourse with Europeans has most rapidly contributed. The reader is referred, for some information on

The produce of this island is bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, bananas of thirteen sorts, the best we had ever eaten; plantains; a fruit not unlike an apple, which, when ripe, is very pleasant; sweet potatoes, yams, cocoas, a kind of Arum; a fruit known here by the name of Jambu, and reckoned most delicious; sugar-cane, which the inhabitants eat raw; a root of the salop kind, called by the inhabitants Pea; a plant called Ethee, of which the root only is eaten; a fruit that grows in a pod, like that of a large kidney-bean, which, when it is roasted, eats very much like a chesnut, by the natives called Ahee; a tree called Wharra, called in the East Indies Pandanes, which produces fruit, something like the pine-apple; a shrub called Nono; the Morinda, which also produces fruit; a species of fern, of which the root is eaten, and sometimes the leaves; and a plant called There, of which the root also is eaten: But the fruits of the Nono, the fern, and the Theve, are eaten only by the inferior people, and in times of scarcity. All these, which serve the inhabitants for food, the earth produces spontaneously, or with so little culture, that they seem to be exempted from the first general curse, that "man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow." They have also the Chinese paper mulberry,

this point, to the account of Turnbull's voyage, published in 1805. A few particulars as to the appearance of Otaheite, on the authority of subsequent accounts, may be given with satisfaction to the reader. The island, which consists of two peninsulas connected by a low neck or isthmus covered with trees and shrubs but quite uninhabited, presents a mountainous aspect, rising high in the centre, with narrow valleys of romantic but luxuriantly pleasing scenery and well watered, studding its verdant surface. The lofty and clustering hills of which the greater part of the island is formed, and which, however steep of ascent, or abrupt in termination, are clothed to the very summit with trees of very various colours and sizes, are encircled with a rich border of low land, the proper seat of the inhabitants, who seem to realize, in its fertility and beauty, all that human imagination can conceive requisite for animal enjoyment. The soil of this border, and of the valleys, is a blackish mould; that of the hills is different, changing as you ascend them into variously coloured earth and marl. The beds of the streams and rivers, which swell into torrents during the rainy season, consist of stones and gravel, often of a flinty nature, and often also containing particles of iron. Some basaltic appearances in one of the districts into which the island is divided, and several precipices among the mountains, evidently produced by sudden violence, indicate the volcanic origin of this highly favoured country. There is plenty of good water to be had over all the island. The weather from March till August is usually mild and pleasant. During the rough season, which lasts from December till March, the wind often blows very hard from the west, and is attended with rain.-E.