hog was immediately ordered to be killed and dressed for supper, with a promise of more in the morning however, as we were less desirous of feasting upon our journey than of carrying back with us provisions, which would be more welcome at the fort, we procured a reprieve for the hog, and supped upon the fruits of the country. As night now came on, and the place was crowded with many more than the houses and canoes would contain, there being Oberea with her attendants, and many other travellers whom we knew, we began to look out for lodgings. Our party consisted of six: Mr. Banks thought himself fortunate in being offered a place by Oberea in her canoe; and wishing his friends a good night, took his leave. He went to rest early, according to the custom of the country, and taking off his clothes, as was his constant practice, the nights being hot, Oberea kindly insisted upon taking them into her own custody, for otherwise she said they would certainly be stolen. Mr. Banks having such a safeguard, resigned himself to sleep with all imaginable tranquillity but waking about eleven o'clock, and wanting to get up, he searched for his clothes where he had seen them deposited by Oberea when he lay down to sleep, and soon perceived that they were missing. He immediately awakened Oberea, who starting up, and hearing his complaint, ordered lights, and prepared in great haste to recover what he had lost. Tootahah himself slept in the next canoe, and being soon alarmed, he came to them, and set out with Oberea in search of the thief. Mr. Banks was not in a condition to go with them, for of his apparel scarce anything was left him but his breeches; his coat and his waistcoat, with his pistols, powder-horn, and many other things that were in the pockets, were gone. In about half an hour his two noble friends returned, but without having obtained any intelligence of his clothes or of the thief. At first he began to be alarmed; his musket had not indeed been taken away; but he had neglected to load it; where I and Dr. Solander had disposed of ourselves he did not know; and therefore, whatever might happen, he could not have recourse to us for assistance. He thought it best, however, to express neither fear nor suspicion of those about him, and giving his musket to Tupia, who had been waked in the confusion, and stood by him, with a charge not to suffer it to be stolen, he betook himself again to rest, declaring himself perfectly satisfied with the pains that Tootahah and Oberea had taken to recover his things, though they had not been successful. As it cannot be supposed that in such a situation his sleep was very sound, he soon after heard music, and saw lights at a little distance on shore: this was a concert or assembly, which they call a HEIVA, a common name for every public exhibition; and as it would necessarily bring many people together, and there was a chance of my being among them with his other friends, he rose, and made the best of his way towards it: he was soon led by the lights and the sound to the hut where I lay, with three other gentlemen of our party; and easily distinguishing us from the rest, he made up to us more than half naked, and told us his melancholy story. We gave him such comfort as the unfortunate generally give to each other, by telling him that we were fellow-sufferers; I showed him that I was myself without stockings, they having been stolen from under my head, though I was sure I had never been asleep, and each of my associates convinced him, by his appearance, that he had lost a jacket. We determined, however, to hear out the concert, however deficient we might appear in our dress; it consisted of three drums, four flutes, and several voices: when this entertainment, which lasted about an hour, was over, we retired again to our sleeping places; having agreed that nothing could be done toward the recovery of our things till the morning. We rose at day-break, according to the custom of the country: the first man that Mr. Banks saw was Tupia, faithfully attending with his musket; and soon after Oberea brought him some of her country clothes, as a succedaneum for his own; so that when he came to us he made a most motley appearance, half Indian and half English. Our party soon got together, except Dr. Solander, whose quarters we did not know, and who had not assisted at the concert: in a short time Tootahah made his appearance, and we pressed him to recover our clothes; but neither he nor Oberea could be persuaded to take any measure for that purpose, so that we began to suspect that they had been parties in the theft. About eight o'clock we were joined by Dr. Solander, who had fallen into honester hands at a house about a mile distant, and had lost nothing. Having given up all hope of recovering our clothes, which, indeed, were never afterwards heard of, we spent all the morning in soliciting the hogs which we had been promised; but in this we had no better success: we therefore, in no very good humour, set out for the boat about twelve o'clock, with only that which we had redeemed from the butcher and the cook the night before. As we were returning to the boat, however, we were entertained with a sight that in some measure compensated for our fatigue and disappointment. In our way we came to one of the few places where access to the island is not guarded by a reef, and, consequently, a high surf breaks upon the shore; a more dreadful one, indeed, I had seldom seen; it was impossible for any European boat to have lived in it; and if the best swimmer in Europe had, by any accident, been exposed to its fury, I am confident that he would not have been able to preserve himself from drowning, especially as the shore was covered with pebbles. and large stones; yet, in the midst of these breakers, were ten or twelve Indians swin. ming for their amusement: whenever a surf broke near them, they dived under it, and, to all appearance with infinite facility, rose again on the other side. This diversion was greatly improved by the stern of an old canoe, which they happened to find upon the spot: they took this before them, and swam out with it as far as the outermost breach, then two or three of them getting into it, and turning the square end to the breaking wave, were driven in towards the shore with incredible rapidity, sometimes almost to the beach; but generally the wave broke over them before they got half way, in which case they dived, and rose on the other side with the canoe in their hands: they then swam out with it again, and were again driven back, just as our holiday youth climb the hill in Greenwich-park for the pleasure of rolling down it. At this wonderful scene we stood gazing for more than half an hour, during which time none of the swimmers attempted to come on shore, but seemed to enjoy their sport in the highest degree; we then proceeded in our journey, and late in the evening got back to the fort. Upon this occasion it may be observed, that human nature is endued with powers which are only accidentally exerted to the utmost; and that all men are capable of what no man attains, except he is stimulated to the effort by some uncommon circumstances or situation. These Indians effected what to us appeared to be supernatural, merely by the application of such powers as they possessed in common with us, and all other men who have no particular infirmity or defect. The truth of the observation is also manifest from more familiar instances. The rope-dancer and balance-master owe their art, not to any peculiar liberality of nature, but to an accidental improvement of her common gifts; and though equal diligence and application would not always produce equal excellence in these, any more than in other arts, yet there is no doubt but that a certain degree of proficiency in them might be universally attained. Another proof of the existence of abilities in mankind, that are almost universally dormant, is furnished by the attainments of blind men. It cannot be supposed that the loss of one sense, like the amputation of a branch from a tree, gives new vigour to those that remain. Every man's hearing and touch, therefore, are capable of the nice distinctions which astonish us in those that have lost their sight, and if they do not give the same intelligence to the mind, it is merely because the same intelligence is not required of them he that can see may do from choice what the blind do by necessity, and by the same diligent attention to the other senses may receive the same notices from them; let it, therefore, be remembered, as an encouragement to persevering diligence, and a principle of general use to mankind, that he who does all he can will ever effect much more than is generally thought to be possible. Among other Indians that had visited us, there were some from a neighbouring island which they called EIMEO or IMAO, the same to which Captain Wallis had given the name of the Duke of York's Island, and they gave us an account of no less than two-and-twenty islands that lay in the neighbourhood of Otaheite. As the day of observation now approached, I determined, in consequence of some hints which had been given me by Lord Morton, to send out two parties to observe the transit from other situations; hoping, that if we should fail at Otaheite, they might have better success. We were, therefore, now busily employed in preparing our instruments, and instructing such gentlemen in the use of them as I intended to send ont. On Thursday the 1st of June, the Saturday following being the day of the transit, I despatched Mr. Gore in the long-boat to Imao, with Mr. Monkhouse and Mr. Sporing, a gentleman belonging to Mr. Banks, Mr. Green having furnished them with proper instruments. Mr. Banks himself thought fit to go upon this expedition, and several natives, particularly Tubourai Tamaide and Tomio, were also of the party. Very early on the Friday morning, I sent Mr. Hicks, with Mr. Clerk and Mr. Petersgill, the master's mates, and Mr. Saunders, one of the midshipmen, in the pinnace to the eastward, with orders to fix on some convenient spot, at a distance from our principal observatory, where they also might employ the instruments with which they had been furnished for the same purpose. The long-boat not having been got ready till Thursday in the afternoon, though all possible expedition was used to fit her out; the people on board, after having rowed most part of the night, brought her to a grappling just under the land of Imao. Soon after day-break, they saw an Indian canoe, which they hailed, and the people on board showed them an inlet through the reef into which they pulled, and soon fixed upon a coral rock, which rose out of the water about one hundred and fifty yards from the shore, as a proper situation for their observatory: it was about eighty yards long and twenty broad, and in the middle of it was a bed of white sand, large enough for the tents to stand upon. Mr. Gore and his assistants immediately began to set them up, and make other necessary preparations for the important business of the next day. While this was doing, Mr. Banks, with the Indians of Otaheite, and the people whom they had met in the canoe, went ashore upon the main island, to buy provisions; of which he procured a sufficient supply before night. When he returned to the rock, he found the observatory in order, and the telescopes all fixed and tried. The evening was very fine, yet their solicitude did not permit them to take much rest in the night one or other of them was up every half hour, who satisfied the impatience of the rest by reporting the changes of the sky, now encouraging their hope, by telling them that it was clear, and now alarming their fears, by an account that it was hazy. : At day-break they got up, and had the satisfaction to see the sun rise without a cloud. Mr. Banks then wishing the observers, Mr. Gore and Mr. Monkhouse, success, repaired again to the island, that he might examine its produce, and get a fresh supply of provisions : he began by trading with the natives, for which purpose he took his station under a tree; and to keep them from pressing upon him in a crowd, he drew a circle round him, which he suffered none of them to enter. About eight o'clock he saw two canoes coming towards the place, and was given to understand by the people about him that they belonged to TARRAO, the king of the island, who was coming to make him a visit. As soon as the canoes came near the shore, the people made a lane from the beach to the trading-place, and his Majesty landed with his sister, whose name was NUNA; as they advanced towards the tree where Mr. Banks stood, he went out to meet them, and, with great formality, introduced them into the circle from which the other natives had been excluded. As it is the custom of these people to sit during all their conferences, Mr. Banks unwrapped a kind of turban of Indian cloth, which he wore upon his head instead of a hat, and spreading it upon the ground, they all sat down upon it together. The royal present was then brought, which consisted of a hog and a dog, some bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, and other articles of the like kind. Mr. Banks then despatched a canoe to the observatory for his present, and the messengers soon returned with an adze, a shirt, and some beads, which were presented to his Majesty, and received with great satisfaction. By this time Tubourai Tamaide and Tomio joined them, from the observatory. Tomio said, that she was related to Tarrao, and brought him a present of a long nail, at the same time complimenting Nuna with a shirt. The first internal contact of the planet with the sun being over, Mr. Banks returned to the observatory, taking Tarrao, Nuna, and some of their principal attendants, among whom were three very handsome young women, with him; he showed them the planet upon the sun, and endeavoured to make them understand that he and his companions had come from their own country on purpose to see it. Soon after Mr. Banks returned with them to the island, where he spent the rest of the day in examining its produce, which he found to be much the same with that of Otaheite. The people whom he saw there also exactly resembled the inhabitants of that island, and many of them were persons whom he had seen upon it; so that all those whom he had dealt with knew of what his trading articles consisted, and the value they bore. The next morning, having struck the tents, they set out on their return, and arrived at the fort before night. The observation was made with equal success by the persons whom I had sent to the eastward; and at the fort, there not being a cloud in the sky from the rising to the setting of the sun, the whole passage of the planet Venus over the sun's disk was observed with great advantage by Mr. Green, Dr. Solander, and myself: Mr. Green's telescope and mine were of the same magnifying power, but that of Dr. Solander was greater. We all saw an atmosphere or dusky cloud round the body of the planet, which very much disturbed the times of contact, especially of the internal ones; and we differed from each other in our accounts of the times of the contacts much more than might have been expected. According to Mr. Green, The first external contact, or first appearance of Venus on the sun, was The second internal contact, or beginning of the emersion The latitude of the observatory was found to be 17 But if we had reason to congratulate ourselves upon the success of our observation, we had scarce less cause to regret the diligence with which that time had been improved by some of our people to another purpose. While the attention of the officers was engrossed by the transit of Venus, some of the ship's company broke into one of the store rooms, and stole a quantity of spike nails, amounting to no less than one hundredweight; this was a matter of public and serious concern; for these nails, if circulated by the people among the Indians, would do us irreparable injury, by reducing the value of iron, our staple commodity. One of the thieves was detected, but only seven nails were found in his custody. He was punished with two dozen lashes, but would impeach none of his accomplices. H. M. S. 9 44 4 J 3 14 Morning. 3 32 10 Afternoon. a b d THE TRANSIT OF VENUS. a. First contact of the planet with the limb of the sun. b, c, d, e. Successive stages of its passage. Its course on leaving the sun's disk follows. CHAPTER XIV.-THE CEREMONIES OF AN INDIAN FUNERAL PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED: GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SUBJECT: A CHARACTER FOUND AMONG THE INDIANS TO WHICH THE ANCIENTS PAID GREAT VENERATION: A ROBBERY AT THE FORT, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES: WITH A SPECIMEN OF INDIAN COOKERY, AND VARIOUS INCIDENTS. On the 5th, we kept his Majesty's birth-day; for though it is the 4th, we were unwilling to celebrate it during the absence of the two parties who had been sent out to observe the transit. We had several of the Indian chiefs at our entertainment, who drank his Majesty's health by the name of Kihiargo, which was the nearest imitation they could produce of King George. About this time died an old woman of some rank, who was related to Tomio, which gave us an opportunity to see how they disposed of the body, and confirmed us in our opinion that these people, contrary to the present custom of all other nations now known, never bury their dead. In the middle of a small square, neatly railed in with bamboo, the awning of a canoe was raised upon two posts, and under this the body was deposited upon such a frame as has before been described; it was covered with fine cloth, and near it was placed breadfruit, fish, and other provisions: we suppose that the food was placed there for the spirit of the deceased, and consequently, that these Indians had some confused notion of a separate state; but upon our applying for further information to Tubourai Tamaide, he told us, that the food was placed there as an offering to their gods. They do not, however, suppose that the gods eat, any more than the Jews suppose that Jehovah could dwell in a house: the offering is made here upon the same principle as the temple was built at Jerusalem, as an expression of reverence and gratitude, and a solicitation of the more immediate presence of the Deity. In the front of the area was a kind of stile, where the relations of the deceased stood, to pay the tribute of their sorrow; and under the awning were innumerable small pieces of cloth, on which the tears and blood of the mourners had been shed; for in their paroxysms of grief it is a universal custom to wound themselves with the shark's tooth. Within a few yards two occasional houses were set up, in one of which some relations of the deceased constantly resided, and in the other the chief mourner, who is always a man, and who keeps there a very singular dress in which a ceremony is performed that will be described in its turn. Near the place where the dead are thus set up to rot, the bones are afterwards buried. What can have introduced among these people the custom of exposing their dead above ground till the flesh is consumed by putrefaction, and then burying the bones, it is, perhaps, impossible to guess; but it is remarkable, that Ælian and Apollonius Rhodius impute a similar practice to the ancient inhabitants of Colchis, a country near Pontus, in Asia, now called Mingrelia; except that among them this manner of disposing of the dead did not extend to both sexes: the women they buried; but the men they wrapped in a hide, and hung up in the air by a chain. This practice among the Colchians is referred to a religious cause. The principal objects of their worship were the earth and the air; and it is supposed that, in consequence of some superstitious notion, they devoted their dead to both. Whether the natives of Otaheite had any notion of the same kind, we were never able certainly to determine; but we soon discovered, that the repositories of their dead were also places of worship. Upon this occasion it may be observed, that nothing can be more absurd than the notion that the happiness or misery of a future life depends, in any degree, upon the disposition of the body when the state of probation is past; yet that nothing is more general than a solicitude about it. However cheap we may hold any funeral rites which custom has not familiarised, or superstition rendered sacred, most men gravely deliberate how to prevent their body from being broken by the mattock and devoured by the worm, when it is no longer capable of sensation; and purchase a place for it in holy ground, when they believe the lot of its future existence to be irrevocably determined. So strong is the association of pleasing or painful ideas with certain opinions and actions which affect us while we live, that we involuntarily act as if it was equally certain that they would affect us in the same manner when we are dead, though this is an opinion that nobody will maintain. Thus it happens, that the desire of preserving from reproach even the name that we leave behind us, or of procuring it honour, is one of the most powerful principles of action, among the inhabitants of the most speculative and enlightened nations. Posthumous reputation, upon every principle, must be acknowledged to have no influence upon the dead; yet the desire of obtaining and securing it, no force of reason, no habits of thinking, can subdue, except in those whom habitual baseness and guilt have rendered indifferent to honour and shame while they lived. This, indeed, seems to be among the happy imperfections of our nature, upon which the general good of society in a certain measure depends; for as some crimes are supposed to be prevented by hanging the body of the criminal in chains after he is dead, so in consequence of the same association of ideas, much good is procured to society, and much evil prevented, by a desire of preventing disgrace or procuring honour to a name, when nothing but a name remains. Perhaps no better use can be made of reading an account of manners altogether new, by which the follies and absurdities of mankind are taken out of that particular connexion in which habit has reconciled them to us, than to consider in how many instances they are |