A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels | Page 6

eagerly pointing to the shore with their paddles, and calling to us to go thither; and several of their countrymen who stood upon the beach held up something white, which we considered also as an invitation to land. We could very well have done this, as there was good anchorage without the reef, and a break or opening in it, from whence the canoes had come out, which had no surf upon it, and where, if there was not water for the ships, there was more than sufficient for the boats. But I did not think proper to risk losing the advantage of a fair wind, for the sake of examining an island that appeared to be of little consequence. We stood in no need of refreshments, if I had been sure of meeting with them there; and having already been so unexpectedly delayed in my progress to the Society Islands, I was desirous of avoiding every possibility of farther retardment. For this reason, after making several unsuccessful attempts to induce these people to come alongside, I made sail to the N., and left them, but not without getting from them, during their vicinity to our ship, the name of their island, which they called Toobouai.
It is situated in the latitude of 23° 25' S., and in 210 37' E. longitude. Its greatest extent, in any direction, exclusive of the reef, is not above five or six miles. On the N.W. side, the reef appears in detached pieces, between which the sea seems to break upon the shore. Small as the island is, there are hills in it of a considerable elevation. At the foot of the hills, is a narrow border of flat land, running quite round it, edged with a white sand beach. The hills are covered with grass, or some other herbage, except a few steep rocky cliffs at one part, with patches of trees interspersed to their summits. But the plantations are more numerous in some of the vallies, and the flat border is quite covered with high, strong trees, whose different kinds we could not discern, except some cocoa-palms, and a few of the etoa. According to the information of the men in the canoes, their island is stocked with hogs and fowls, and produces the several fruits and roots that are found at the other islands in this part of the Pacific Ocean.
We had an opportunity, from the conversation we had with those who came off to us, of satisfying ourselves, that the inhabitants of Toobouai speak the Otaheite language, a circumstance that indubitably proves them to be of the same nation. Those of them whom we saw in the canoes were a stout copper-coloured people, with straight black hair, which some of them wore tied in a bunch on the crown of the head, and others flowing about the shoulders. Their faces were somewhat round and full, but the features, upon the whole, rather flat, and their countenances seemed to express some degree of natural ferocity. They had no covering but a piece of narrow stuff wrapped about the waist, and made to pass between the thighs, to cover the adjoining parts; but some of those whom we saw upon the beach, where about a hundred persons had assembled, were entirely clothed with a kind of white garment. We could observe, that some of our visitors in the canoes wore pearl shells hang about the neck as an ornament. One of them kept blowing a large conch-shell, to which a reed near two feet long was fixed; at first, with a continued tone of the same kind, but he afterward converted it into a kind of musical instrument, perpetually repeating two or three notes, with the same strength. What the blowing the conch portended, I cannot say, but I never found it the messenger of peace.
Their canoes appeared to be about thirty feet long, and two feet above the surface of the water, as they floated. The fore part projected a little, and had a notch cut across, as if intended to represent the mouth of some animal. The after part rose, with a gentle curve, to the height of two or three feet, turning gradually smaller, and, as well as the upper part of the sides, was carved all over. The rest of the sides, which were perpendicular, were curiously incrustated with flat white shells, disposed nearly in concentric semicircles, with the curve upward. One of the canoes carried seven, and the other eight men, and they were managed with small paddles, whose blades were nearly round. Each of them had a pretty long outrigger; and they sometimes paddled, with the two opposite sides together so close, that they seemed to be one boat with two outriggers, the rowers turning their faces