Pioneers in Australasia

by Harry Johnston

The following day they passed another atoll, shaped exactly like a bow, the arc and cord being land, and the space between them water, that part answering to the arc of the bow being about 200 yards wide, 12 or more miles long, and fairly well covered with trees, while the straight, low beach answering to the bowstring was a long strip of coral rocks, through which there were openings connecting the lagoon with the sea. This island, like similar ones which they sailed by in the succeeding days, was inhabited by Polynesians of the usual type, brown-skinned, naked, tall, well-made, and with abundance of black hair; but in some cases this bushed out from the head, showing that the people were not without some Melanesian blood. They seemed to be armed with wooden weapons, one of them a slender pole with a knob at the end, and another a paddle, which might be used for striking or stabbing or for navigating a canoe. The canoes these people had possessed sails.

CAPTAIN COOK'S ARRIVAL AT TAHITI (1769)

Passing by Osnaburg Island, already discovered by Captain Wallis, Cook reached Tahiti (which at once struck them in its difference from the atoll islands by being high and mountainous) on 12 April, 1769. Before even he could get near the shore his ship was surrounded by canoes, in which there were bunches of bananas and branches of a tree, which it was the custom of these people to wave as a token of peace and amity. By signs they expressed the wish that these branches should be stuck amongst the rigging of the ship as a sign that they would be received with friendliness. This having been done, the canoes approached the ship close enough to hand their cargoes of coconuts, bananas, and other fruit on board, where it was eagerly purchased by the sailors, being extremely acceptable after their long privation from such additions to their diet. The next day the ship came to an anchor in Port Royal Bay (Matavai). Here the first thing that attracted their attention, when the natives came off to trade, was the bread-fruit.[73]

Before anyone from the Endeavour was allowed to land at Tahiti, Cook wisely drew up rules to guide the relations of the seamen and officers with the natives, in order as far as possible to avoid provoking quarrels with them, or enabling the latter to acquire weapons which might be turned against the white men. Landing himself, with Banks and Dr. Solander, a party of armed seamen, and a native of Tahiti, who had come off to the ship and constituted himself their guide, he noticed that the Polynesian people were so awestruck that the first who approached them almost came creeping on his hands and knees. Leafy boughs having been offered in token of peace, the Englishmen likewise broke off green branches and held them in their hands, and, the whole party having marched to a place where there was a freshwater spring and where the ground was clean and bare, green boughs were dropped by both sides in a regular heap, and after that relations between them became much less formal, especially after Cook's party had distributed beads and other small presents. They walked for about 5 miles through groves of trees loaded with coconuts and bread-fruit, and offering the most grateful shade. Under the trees were the houses of the natives, most of them being only a roof without walls, and the whole scene realizing "the poetical fables of Arcadia".

The next day canoes came out to the Endeavour evidently filled with people of superior rank. Two of these chiefs came on board and selected Cook and Banks to be their special friends, carrying out this ceremony by taking off most of their clothing and putting it about the shoulders of the Englishmen. Return presents were given to them, and after a long row in the boats of the Endeavour the notabilities of that ship accompanying their Tahitian friends landed and went to a house of much greater length and size than any they had yet seen. Here was found a chief by the name of Tutaha, who presented them with a cock and hen and pieces of perfumed bark cloth. In other houses they met the women, who received them with such extravagant demonstrations of affection that they were embarrassed. Soon afterwards another chief gave them a meal, which they ate with the greatest heartiness. It consisted of fish, bread-fruit, coconut, and bananas, cooked after the native fashion. They were enjoying this meal, though perhaps not quite so much the affectionate attentions of the native ladies (who kept plying them with coconut milk), when suddenly two of the officers complained that their pockets had been picked—a complaint, one would think, under the circumstances, they might have waived on such an occasion. However, Dr. Solander lost an opera glass, and Mr. Monkhouse, a surgeon, his snuff box.

Complaint was at once made to the chief, and Banks somewhat aggressively jumped to his feet and struck the butt end of his gun on the ground. Immediately all the natives fled in a panic, with the exception of two or three chiefs and their wives. The principal personage amongst these at once took Mr. Banks by the hand and led him to a large quantity of cloth which lay at the other end of the house, offering it to him piece by piece, and intimating by signs that if that would atone for the wrong which had been done he might take all he saw. But this compensation was refused, and eventually the chief, after being absent for some time, returned with the missing snuff box and the case of the opera glass. This, however, upon being opened, was found to be empty. Whereupon the chief, catching Mr. Banks by the hand, led him rapidly along the shore for a mile or more, till he reached a house from which a woman came out and gave him a piece of cloth, which he hastily took from her and continued to press forward. Banks had been followed by Dr. Solander and Surgeon Monkhouse, and at last the whole party came to a place where they were received by a woman to whom the chief presented the piece of cloth and to whom the Englishmen gave a few beads. The beads and cloth being deposited on the floor, the woman went out, and in about half an hour she returned with the opera glass, and expressing the same joy as was now shown by the chief. She also returned the beads and the cloth, refusing to accept them.

The next day the chiefs came off to the ship with pigs, bread-fruit, and other provisions, for which they received suitable return presents of hatchets and linen. Cook then established an encampment on shore, but their pleasant relations with the natives were temporarily spoilt by the petulance of a midshipman named Monkhouse (not to be confused with the surgeon of that name) commanding one of the landing parties. A Tahitian had snatched away the musket of one of the marines. Whereupon this midshipman ordered his men to fire into the thickest of the crowd, afterwards pursuing the thief and shooting him dead. However, thanks to the chiefs Tuburai, Tamaide, and Tutaha, peace was made and intercourse soon resumed without much restraint. The body of the man who had been shot in the encampment was found to be wrapped in cloth and placed on a bier supported by stakes under a roof, where it would be allowed to decay with a terrible stench until at last it was nothing but a dry skeleton.

Charming as life was in many respects on this Pacific island there was one pest which at times proved almost unendurable—apparently none other than the common house fly, which existed in such enormous numbers that it was an incessant torment during daylight. If one of the draughtsmen attached to the expedition attempted to make a water-colour study of any object, the flies would settle on his paper so thickly that no part of its surface could be seen, and eat the colour up as fast as he could lay it on. [It will be remembered that Tasman noted the same plague of flies in the Tonga archipelago.]