A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 760 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 760 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12.
of rocks, which form several good harbours, with safe anchorage, in 16, 18, 20, and 24 fathom of water, with other conveniences.  As we had not yet got into our enemy’s country, we determined to sleep on shore:  We landed, and though we found but few houses, we saw several double canoes, whose owners were well known to us, and who provided us with supper and lodging; of which Mr Banks was indebted for his share to Ooratooa, the lady who had paid him her compliments in so singular a manner at the fort.

In the morning, we looked about the country, and found it to be a marshy flat, about two miles over, across which the natives haul their canoes to the corresponding bay on the other side.  We then prepared to continue our route for what Tituboalo called the other kingdom; he said that the name of it was Tiarrabou, or Otaheite Ete; and that of the chief who governed it, Waheatua:  Upon this occasion also, we learnt that the name of the peninsula where we had taken our station was Opoureonu, or Otaheite Nue.  Our new associate seemed to be now in better spirits than he had been the day before; the people in Tiarrabou would not kill us, he said, but he assured us that we should be able to procure no victuals among them; and indeed we had seen no bread-fruit since we set out.

After rowing a few miles, we landed in a district, which was the dominion of a chief called Maraitata, the burying-place of men, whose father’s name was Pahairedo, the stealer of boats.  Though these names seemed to favour the account that had been given by Tituboalo, we soon found that it was not true.  Both the father and the son received us with the greatest civility, gave us provisions, and, after some delay, sold us a very large hog for a hatchet A crowd soon gathered round us, but we saw only two people that we knew; neither did we observe a single bead or ornament among them that had come from our ship, though we saw several things which had been brought from Europe:  In one of the houses lay two twelve-pound shot, one of which was marked with the broad arrow of England, though the people said they had them from the ships that lay in Bougainville’s harbour.

We proceeded on foot till we came to the district which was immediately under the government of the principal chief, or king of the peninsula, Waheatua.  Waheatua had a son, but whether, according to the custom of Opoureonu, he administered the government as regent, or in his own right, is uncertain.  This district consists of a large and fertile plain, watered by a river so wide, that we were obliged to ferry over it in a canoe; our Indian train, however, chose to swim, and took to the water with the same facility as a pack of hounds.  In this place we saw no house that appeared to be inhabited, but the ruins of many, that had been very large.  We proceeded along the shore; which forms a bay, called Oaitipeha, and at last we found the chief sitting near some pretty

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.