In the evening, the weather having become fair and moderate, the boats were again ordered out, and I landed, accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander. We were received with great expressions of friendship by the natives, who behaved with a scrupulous attention not to give offence. In particular, they took care not to appear in great bodies: one family, or the inhabitants of two or three houses only, were generally placed together, to the number of fifteen or twenty, consisting of men, women, and children. These little companies sat upon the ground, not advancing towards us, but inviting us to them, by a kind of beckon, moving one hand towards the breast. We made them several little presents; and in our walk round the bay found two small streams of fresh water. This convenience, and the friendly behaviour of the people, determined me to stay at least a day, that I might fill some of my empty casks, and give Mr. Banks an opportunity of examining the natural produce of the country.
In the morning of, the 21st, I sent lieutenant Gore on shore, to superintend the watering, with a strong party of men; and they were soon followed by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, with Tupia, Tayeto, and four others.
The natives sat by our people, and seemed pleased to observe them; but did not intermix with them: they traded, however, chiefly for cloth, and after a short time applied to their ordinary occupations, as if no stranger had been among them. In the forenoon, several of their boats went out a-fishing, and at dinner time every one repaired to his respective dwelling; from which, after a certain time, he returned. These fair appearances encouraged Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander to range the bay with very little precaution, where they found many plants, and shot some birds of exquisite beauty. In their walk, they visited several houses of the natives, and saw something of their manner of life; for they showed, without any reserve, every thing which the gentlemen desired to see. They were sometimes found at their meals, which the approach of the strangers never interrupted. Their food at this season consisted of fish, with which, instead of bread, they eat the root of a kind of fern, very like that which grows upon our commons in England. These roots they scorch over the fire, and then beat with a stick, till the bark and dry outside fall off; what remains is a soft substance, somewhat clammy and sweet, not unpleasing to the taste, but mixed with three or four times its quantity of strings and fibres, which are very disagreeable; these were swallowed by some, but spit out by the far greater number, who had baskets under them to receive the rejected part of what had been chewed, which had an appearance very like that of tobacco in the same state, in other seasons they have certainly plenty of excellent vegetables; but no tame animals were seen among them except dogs, which were very small and ugly. Mr. Banks saw some of their plantations, where the ground was as well broken down and tilled as even in the gardens of the most curious people among us: in these spots were sweet potatoes, coccos or eddas, which are well known and much esteemed both in the East and West Indies, and some gourds: the sweet potatoes were planted in small hills, some ranged in rows, and others in quincunx, all laid by a line with the greatest regularity: the coccos were planted upon flat land, but none of them yet appeared above ground; and the gourds were set in small hollows, or dishes, much as in England. These plantations were of different extent, from one or two acres to ten: taken together, there appeared to be from 150 to 200 acres in cultivation in the whole bay, though we never saw an hundred people. Each district was fenced in, generally with reeds, which were placed so close together that there was scarcely room for a mouse to creep between.
The women were plain, and made themselves more so by painting their faces with red ochre and oil, which, being generally fresh and wet upon their cheeks and foreheads, was easily transferred to the noses of those who thought fit to salute them; and that they were not wholly averse to such familiarity, the noses of several of our people strongly testified: they were, however, as great coquets as any of the most fashionable ladies in Europe, and the young ones as skittish as an unbroken filly: each of them wore a petticoat, under which there was a girdle, made of the blades of grass highly perfumed, and to the girdle was fastened a small bunch of the leaves of some fragrant plant, which served their modesty as its innermost veil. The faces of the men were not so generally painted, yet we saw one whose whole body, and even his garments, were rubbed over with dry ochre, of which he kept a piece constantly in his hand, and was every minute renewing the decoration in one part or another, where he supposed it was become deficient. In personal delicacy they were not equal to our friends at Otaheite, for the coldness of the climate did not invite them so often to bathe; but we saw among them one instance of cleanliness in which they exceeded them, and of which perhaps there is no example in any other Indian nation. Every house, or every little cluster of three or four houses, was furnished with a privy, so that the ground was every where clean. The offals of their food, and other litter, were also piled up in regular dunghills, which probably they made use of at a proper time for manure.
In this decent article of civil economy they were beforehand with one of the most considerable nations of Europe; for I am credibly informed, that, till the year 1760, there was no such thing as a privy in Madrid, the metropolis of Spain, though it is plentifully supplied with water. Before that time it was the universal practice to throw the ordure out of the windows, during the night, into the street, where numbers of men were employed to remove it, with shovels, from the upper parts of the city to the lower, where it lay till it was dry, and was then carried away in carts, and deposited without the gates. His present Catholic Majesty, having determined to free his capital from so gross a nuisance, ordered, by proclamation, that the proprietor of every house should build a privy, and that sinks, drains, and common sewers should be made at the public expense. The Spaniards, though long accustomed to an arbitrary government, resented this proclamation with great spirit, as an infringement of the common rights of mankind, and made a vigorous struggle against its being carried into execution. Every class devised some objection against it, but the physicians bid the fairest to interest the king in the preservation of the ancient privileges of his people; for they remonstrated that if the filth was not, as usual, thrown into the streets, a fatal sickness would probably ensue, because the putrescent particles of the air, which such filth attracted, would then be imbibed by the human body. But this expedient, with every other that could be thought of, proved unsuccessful, and the popular discontent then ran so high that it was very near producing an insurrection; his Majesty, however, at length prevailed, and Madrid is now as clear as most of the considerable cities in Europe. But many of the citizens, probably upon the principles advanced by their physicians, that heaps of filth prevent deleterious particles of air from fixing upon neighbouring substances, have, to keep their food wholesome, constructed their privies by the kitchen fire.
In the evening, all our boats being employed in carrying the water on board, and Mr. Banks and his company finding it probable that they should be left on shore after it was dark, by which much time would be lost, which they were impatient to employ in putting the plants they had gathered in order, they applied to the Indians for a passage in one of their canoes: they immediately consented, and a canoe was launched for their use. They went all on board, being eight in number, but not being used to a vessel that required so even a balance, they unfortunately overset her in the surf: no life, however, was lost, but it was thought advisable that half of them should wait for another turn. Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, Tupia, and Tayeto embarked again, and without any further accident arrived safely at the ship, well pleased with the good nature of their Indian friends, who cheerfully undertook to carry them a second time, after having experienced how unfit a freight they were for such a vessel.
While these gentlemen were on shore, several of the natives went off to the ship, and trafficked, by exchanging their cloth for that of Otaheite: of this barter they were for some time very fond, preferring the Indian cloth to that of Europe: but before night it decreased in its value five hundred per cent. Many of these Indians I took on board, and showed them the ship and her apparatus, at which they expressed equal satisfaction and astonishment.
As I found it exceedingly difficult to get water on board on account of the surf, I determined to stay no longer at this place; on the next morning, therefore, about five o’clock, I weighed anchor, and put to sea.
This bay, which is called by the natives Tegadoo, lies in the latitude of 38° 10ʹ S.; but as it has nothing to recommend it, a description of it is unnecessary.
From this bay I intended to stand on to the northward, but the wind being right against me, I could make no way. While I was beating about to windward, some of the natives came on board, and told me, that in a bay which lay a little to the southward, being the same that I could not fetch the day I put into Tegadoo, there was excellent water, where the boats might land without a surf. I thought it better, therefore, to put into this bay, where I might complete my water, and form farther connections with the Indians, than to keep the sea. With this view I bore up for it, and sent in two boats, manned and armed, to examine the watering-place, who confirming the report of the Indians at their return, I came to an anchor about one o’clock, in eleven fathom water, with a fine sandy bottom, the north point of the bay N. by E., and the south point S. E. The watering-place, which was in a small cove a little within the south point of the bay, bore S. by E., distant about a mile. Many canoes came immediately off from the shore, and all traded very honestly for Otaheite cloth and glass-bottles, of which they were immoderately fond.