On the 15th, it was hazy, with light breezes and calms succeeding each other, so that we could see no land, and made but little way. Our Indian, Tupia, often prayed for a wind to his god Tane, and as often boasted of his success, which indeed he took a very effectual method to secure, for he never began his address to Tane, till he saw a breeze so near that he knew it must reach the ship before his oraison was well over. On the 16th, we had a gentle breeze; and in the morning about eight o'clock, being close in with the north-west part of the Island Huaheine, we sounded, but had no bottom with 80 fathom. Some canoes very soon came off, but the people seemed afraid, and kept at a distance till they discovered Tupia, and then they ventured nearer. In one of the canoes that came up to the ship's side, was the king of the island and his wife. Upon assurances of friendship, frequently and earnestly repeated, their majes ties and some others came on board. At first they were struck with astonishment, and wondered at every thing that was shewn them; yet they made no enquiries, and seeming to be satisfied with what was offered to their notice, they made no search after other objects of curiosity, with which it was natural to suppose a building of such novelty and magnitude as the ship must abound. After some time, they became more familiar. I was given to understand, that the name of the king was Oree, and he proposed, as a mark of amity, that we should exchange names. To this I readily consented; and he was Cookee, for so he pronounced my name, and I was Oree, for the rest of the time we were together. We found these people to be very nearly the same with those of Otaheite, in person, dress, language, and every other circumstance, except, if Tupia might be believed, that they would not steal. Soon after dinner, we came to an anchor, in a small but excellent harbour on the west side of the island, which the natives call Owharre, in eighteen fathom water, clear ground, and secure from all winds. I went immediately ashore, accompanied by Mr Banks, Dr Solander, Mr Monkhouse, Tupia, King Cookee, and some other of the natives who fertile, and to abound especially with cocoa-nuts. There are not many habitations to be seen on it. The government is said to depend on Huaheine, which is distant from it about fourteen leagues.-E. who had been on board ever since the morning, The mo ment we landed, Tupia stripped himself as low as the waist, and desired Mr Monkhouse to do the same: He then sat down before a great number of the natives, who were collected together in a large house or shed; for here, as well as at Otaheite, a house consists only of a roof supported upon poles; the rest of us, by his desire, standing behind. He then began a speech or prayer, which lasted about a quarter of an hour, the king, who stood over against him, every now and then answering in what appeared to be set responses. In the course of this harangue he delivered at different times two handkerchiefs, a black silk neckcloth, some beads, two small bunches of feathers, and some plantains, as presents to their Eatua, or God. In return for these, he received for our Eatua, a hog, some young plantains, and two small bunches of feathers, which he ordered to be carried on board the ship. After these ceremonies, which we supposed to be the ratification of a treaty between us, every one was dismissed to go whither he pleased; and Tupia immediately repaired to offer his oblations at one of the Morais. The next morning, we went on shore again, and walked up the hills, where the productions were exactly the same as those of Otaheite, except that the rocks and clay appeared to be more burnt. The houses were neat, and the boat-houses remarkably large; one that we measured was fifty paces long, ten broad, and twenty-four feet high; the whole formed a pointed arch, like those of our old cathedrals, which was supported on one side by twenty-six, and on the other by thirty pillars, or rather posts, about two feet high, and one thick, upon most of which were rudely carved the heads of men, and several fanciful devices, not altogether unlike those which we sometimes see printed from wooden blocks, at the beginning and end of old books. The plains, or flat part of the country, abounded in bread-fruit, and cocoa-nut trees; in some places, however, there were salt swamps and lagoons, which would produce neither. We went again a-shore on the 18th, and would have taken the advantage of Tupia's company, in our perambulation; but he was too much engaged with his friends: We took, however, his boy, whose name was Tayeto, and Mr Banks went to take a farther view of what had much engaged engaged his attention before; it was a kind of chest or ark, the lid of which was nicely sewed on, and thatched very neatly with palm-nut leaves: It was fixed upon two poles, and supported on little arches of wood, very neatly carved; the use of the poles seemed to be to remove it from place to place, in the manner of our sedan chairs: In one end of it was a square hole, in the middle of which was a ring touching the sides, and leaving the angles open, so as to form a round hole within a square one. The first time Mr Banks saw this coffer, the aperture at the end was stopped with a piece of cloth, which, lest he should give offence, he left untouched; probably there was then something within, but now the cloth was taken away, and, upon looking into it, it was found empty. The general resemblance between this repository and the ark of the Lord among the Jews is remarkable; but it is still more remarkable, that upon enquiring of the boy what it was called, he said, Echarre no Eatua, the house of the God: He could however give no account of its signification or use.* We 4 Mr Parkhurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, takes notice of this circumstance, and admits the resemblance. But in fact, there is no need to have recourse to the Jews in particular, for something similar to what is here mentioned. The Egyptians, according to Herodotus, Euter, 63, kept their god in a case or box, and at certain times carried it about or drew it on a four-wheeled carriage. Diodorus Siculus says the same thing of them, in his first book. Both these writers, it is remarkable, use the same word for this containing vehicle; it is as or vaos, the temple, shrine, or sacred dwelling. The reader may have heard of the horrid god at Juggernaut, who is drawn on a wheeled carriage, as described in such dreadful terms by Dr Buchanan, in the account of his travels and researches in India. The Israelites, it is very probable from a passage in the prophet Amos, v. 26, copied the example of some of their idolatrous neighbours, in bearing a temple of Moloch and Chiun. See Raphelius on Acts vii. 43. where mention is made of the same offence against the positive commands of God. It may be distinctly proved, that the gods and goddesses of the hea thens were accustomed to have their tabernacula and fana, and that some of them were portable. Thus the Greeks had their μginal, and the Romans their thensa. Virgil, we see in the Eneid, speaks of the Errantesque deos, agitataque numina Troja, as a great misfortune. It would be idle to enter here on the question discussed by different men of learning, whether the practice of having temples or places of abode for their gods originated among the Gentiles, and was thence adopted by way of condescension into the Mosaic economy; or was borrowed by the Gentiles from some early revelation corrupted, which had for its object the holding out the great promise, that God himself would one day tabernacle among men upon the earth. This latter opinion is the more probable one by a great deal. It is not a little like the sentiment se strongly We had commenced a kind of trade with the natives, but it went on slowly; for when any thing was offered, not one of them would take it upon his own judgment, but collected the opinions of twenty or thirty people, which could not be done without great loss of time. We got, however, eleven pigs, and determined to try for more the next day. The next day, therefore, we brought out some hatchets, for which we hoped we should have had no occasion, upon an island which no European had ever visited before. These procured us three very large hogs; and as we proposed to sail in the afternoon, King Oree and several others came on board to take their leave. To the King I gave a small plate of pewter, on which was stamped this inscription, His Britannic Majesty's ship, Endeavour, Lieutenant Cook Commander, 16th July, 1769, Huaheine." I gave him also some medals or counters, resembling the coin of England, struck in the year 1761, with some other presents; and he promised that with none of these, particularly the plate, he would ever part. I thought it as lasting a testimony of our having first discovered this island, as any we could leave behind; and having dismissed our visitors well satisfied, and in great good humour, we set sail, about half an hour after two in the afternoon. The island of Huaheine, or Huahene, is situated in the latitude of 16° 43'S. and longitude 150° 52′ W. from Greenwich: It is distant from Otaheite about thirty-one leagues, in the direction of N. 58 W. and is about seven leagues in compass. Its surface is hilly and uneven, and it has a safe and commodious harbour. The harbour, which is called by the natives Owalle, or Owharre, lies on the west side, under the northernmost high land, and within the north end of the reef, which lies along that side of the island; there are two inlets or openings, by which it may be entered, through the reef, about a mile and a half distant from each other; the southermost is the widest, and on the south side of it lies a very small sandy island. Huaheine maintained by some excellent authors, and certainly in a high degree countenanced by scripture, that the sacrifices amongst the heathens were derived from some early but vitiated revelation of that one great sacrifice and atonement, which God himself had provided in behalf of his guilty creatures. For this opinion, the candid reader will not fail to perceive the strongest evidence produced, in a most important recent publication, Dr Magee's Discourses, &c. on the Atonement.-E. Huaheine seems to be a month forwarder in its productions than Otaheite, as we found the cocoa-nuts full of kernel, and some of the new bread-fruit fit to eat. Of the cocoa-nuts the inhabitants make a food which they call Poe, by mixing them with yams; they scrape both fine, and having incorporated the powder, they put it into a wooden trough, with a number of hot stones, by which an oily kind of hasty-pudding is made, that our people relished very well, especially when it was fryed. Mr Banks found not more than eleven or twelve new plants; but he observed some insects, and a species of scorpion which he had not seen before. The inhabitants seem to be larger made, and more stout, than those of Otaheite. Mr Banks measured one of the men, and found him to be six feet three inches and a half high; yet they are so lazy, that he could not persuade any of them to go up the hills with him: They said, if they were to attempt it, the fatigue would kill them. The women were very fair, more so than those of Otaheite; and in general, we thought them more handsome, though none that were equal to some individuals. Both sexes seemed to be less timid, and less curious: It has been observed, that they made no enquiries on board the ship; and when we fired a gun, they were frightened indeed, but they did not fall down, as our friends at Otaheite constantly did when we first came among them. For this difference, however, we can easily account upon other principles; the people at Huaheine had not seen the Dolphin, those at Otaheite had. In one, the report of a gun was connected with the idea of instant destruction; to the other, there was nothing dreadful in it but the appearance and the sound, as they had never experienced its power of dispensing death. While we were on shore, we found that Tupia had commended them beyond their merit, when he said that they would not steal; for one of them was detected in the fact. But when he was seized by the hair, the rest, instead of running away, as the people at Otaheite would have done, gathered round, and enquired what provocation had been given: But this also may be accounted for without giving them credit for superior courage; they had no experience of the consequence of European resentment, which the people at Otaheite had in many instances purchased with |