[99] Cook describes the sails used by the Polynesians of the Tonga archipelago as being lateen, extended to a lateen yard above and a boom at the foot. When they change tacks they throw the vessel up in the wind, ease off the sheet, and bring the tack end of the yard to the other end of the boat. There are notches or sockets at both ends of the vessel into which each end of the yard is put. He describes the sails as being exactly similar to those in use at the Ladrone Islands.
[100] For the convenience of the reader I might repeat the statement that Easter Island, in 27° S. latitude, is, as regards human inhabitants, the farthest prolongation eastwards of Polynesia, and is situated 2374 miles from the west coast of South America, and 1326 miles from Pitcairn Island, the nearest land.
[101] Some of these figures are outside the British Museum.
[102] There is an extraordinary development of southern conifers in New Caledonia and the adjacent islands and islets. They belong to the genera Araucaria (eight species), Podocarpus (seven species), Agathis, Dacrydium, Libocedrus (five species), Callitris, and Acmopyle, a remarkable assemblance for a land area of about 6450 square miles.
[103] The actual truth of this story was that the Adventure, returning to New Zealand to keep her tryst with the Resolution, had sent a boat with a landing party to get wood and water. These had landed, and, for some reason not explained, had been attacked by the natives, who had killed them all but one, and eaten a good deal of their remains. Apparently a midshipman, Woodhouse, escaped slaughter, and afterwards managed in some way to get in a native canoe to other islands and return to England in a foreign ship. The Adventure was obliged through shortage of supplies to give up the idea of meeting her consort and make the best of her way to England. Accordingly, she steered through the southern latitudes for South America and the Cape of Good Hope. With a continual wind blowing eastwards she was almost blown across the Pacific, and reached Cape Horn in only a month from New Zealand, and from here sailed onwards till she reached the Cape of Good Hope, and, eventually, England. Her gallant captain, Furneaux, afterwards died in the American war, at the early age of forty-six.
[104] This matter has been dealt with in my work on the Pioneers in Canada.
[105] After the father of Queen Victoria—the Duke of Kent.
[106] The Hawaiians, though very friendly, were very thievish, and their robberies on the Resolution and Discovery and attempts to take away boats became so serious that Cook landed with a party of marines and attempted to secure the person of a king or chief as a hostage. In the struggle that followed he and four marines were killed. The flesh from Cook's body was afterwards sent back to the ship, but his bones were preserved by the priests as relics.
[107] A midshipman on board the Bounty, Peter Heywood, who really took no part in the mutiny other than not offering to accompany Captain Bligh, and who surrendered himself to the Pandora by swimming off to that ship when she arrived at Tahiti, was afterwards tried for his life in London under very affecting circumstances. He might quite easily have been sentenced to death but for the unflagging efforts of his sister Nessy, a young girl with some gifts as a poetess, who resided in the Isle of Man. The journey of Nessy Heywood to London, the way in which she petitioned and interviewed ministers and secretaries of state, and ultimately so worked on the feelings of the great people in the capital, that although her brother was convicted he was afterwards pardoned and restored to the naval service, is as much worthy to be made the subject of an historical novel as the conduct of Jeanie Deans in the Heart of Midlothian. Unhappily Nessy wore herself out in this struggle, and a few months after her brother's restoration to liberty died of consumption. Peter Heywood afterwards distinguished himself in the naval wars with France, became a post-captain, and died in 1831.
[108] They were afterwards transferred to Tasmania.