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

we found from forty to thirty-five fathoms water, over a
bottom of fine sand. Nearer in, the bottom was strewed with coral rocks.
The canoes having advanced to about the distance of a pistol-shot from
the ship, there stopped. Omai was employed, as he usually had been on
such occasions, to use all his eloquence to prevail upon the men in
them to come nearer; but no entreaties could induce them to trust
themselves within our reach. They kept 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