Description of the new island; manners and character of its
inhabitants.
Lucis habitamus opacis,
Riparumque toros & prata recentia rivis
Incolimus.
Virg. Æneid. Lib. VI.
The isle which at first was called New Cythera, is known by the name of Taiti amongst its inhabitants. |Geographical position of Taiti.| Its latitude has been determined in our camp, from several meridian altitudes of the sun, observed on shore with a quadrant. Its longitude has been ascertained by eleven observations of the moon, according to the method of the horary angles. M. Verron had made many others on shore, during four days and four nights, to determine the same longitude; but the paper on which he wrote them having been stolen, he has only kept the last observations, made the day before our departure. He believes their result exact enough, though their extremes differ among themselves 7° or 8°. The loss of our anchors, and all the accidents I have mentioned before, obliged us to leave this place much sooner than we intended, and have made it impossible for us to survey its coasts. The southern part of it is entirely unknown to us; that which we have observed from the S. E. to the N. W. point, seems to be fifteen or twenty leagues in extent, and the position of its principal points, is between N. W. and W. N. W.
Better anchorage than that where we were.
Between the S. E. point and another great cape advancing to the northward, about seven or eight leagues from the former, you see a bay open to the N. E. which has three or four leagues depth. Its shores gradually descend towards the bottom of the bay, where they have but little height, and seem to form the finest and best peopled district of the whole island. It seems it would be easy to find several good anchoring-places in this bay. We were very ill served by fortune in meeting with our anchorage. In entering into it by the passage where the Etoile came out at, M. de la Giraudais assured me, that between the two most northerly isles, there was a very safe anchorage for at least thirty ships; that there was from twenty-three to between twelve and ten fathom of water, grey sand and ooze; that there was a birth of a league in extent, and never any sea. The rest of the shore is high, and seems in general to be quite surrounded by a reef, unequally covered by the sea, and forming little isles in some parts, on which the islanders keep up fires at night on account of their fishery, and for the safety of their navigation; some gaps from space to space form entrances to the part within the reefs, but the bottom must not be too much relied upon. The lead never brings up any thing but a grey sand; this sand covers great masses of hard and sharp coral, which can cut through a cable in one night, as fatal experience taught us.
Beyond the north point of this bay, the coast forms no creek, nor no remarkable cape. The most westerly point is terminated by a low ground, from which to the N. W. and at about a league’s distance, you see a low isle, extending two or three leagues to the N. W.