The taboo also prevails in Atooi in its full extent, and seemingly with much more rigour than even at Tongataboo. For the people here always asked, with great eagerness and signs of fear to offend, whether any particular thing which they desired to see, or we were unwilling to show, was taboo, or, as they pronounced the word, tafoo? The maia, raa, or forbidden articles at the Society Islands, though doubtless the same thing, did not seem to be so strictly observed by them, except with respect to the dead, about whom we thought them more superstitious than any of the others were. But these are circumstance with which we are not as yet sufficiently acquainted, to be decisive about; and I shall only just observe, to show the similitude in other matters connected with religion, that the priests, or tahounas, here, are as numerous as at the other islands, if we may judge from our being able, during our stay, to distinguish several saying their poore, or prayer.

But whatever resemblance we might discover, in the general manners of the people of Atooi to those of Otaheite, these of course were less striking than the coincidence of language. Indeed, the languages of both places may be said to be almost word for word the same. It is true, that we sometimes remarked particular words to be pronounced exactly as we had found at New Zealand and the Friendly Islands; but though all the four dialects are indisputably the same, these people in general have neither the strong guttural pronunciation of the former, nor a less degree of it, which also distinguishes the latter; and they have not only adopted the soft mode of the Otaheiteans in avoiding harsh sounds, but the whole idiom of their language, using not only the same affixes and suffixes to their words, but the same measure and cadence in their songs, though in a manner somewhat less agreeable. There seems, indeed, at first hearing, some disagreement to the ear of a stranger, but it ought to be considered, that the people of Otaheite, from their frequent connections with the English, had learnt, in some measure, to adapt themselves to our scanty knowledge of their language, by using not only the most common, but even corrupted, expressions in conversation with us; whereas, when they conversed among themselves and used the several parts necessary to propriety of speech, they were scarcely at all understood by those amongst us, who had made the greatest proficiency in their vocabulary. A catalogue of words was collected at Atooi by Mr. Anderson, who lost no opportunity of making our voyage useful to those who amuse themselves in tracing the migrations of the various tribes or families that have peopled the globe, by the most convincing of all arguments, that drawn from affinity of language.

How shall we account for this nation’s having spread itself in so many detached islands, so widely disjoined from each other, in every quarter of the Pacific Ocean! We find it from New Zealand in the south, as far as the Sandwich Islands to the north! And in another direction, from Easter Island to the Hebrides! That is, over an extent of sixty degrees of latitude or twelve hundred leagues north and south! And eighty-three degrees of longitude, or sixteen hundred and sixty leagues east and west! How much farther in either direction its colonies reach is not known; but what we know already, in consequence of this and our former voyage, warrants our pronouncing it to be, though perhaps not the most numerous, certainly, by far, the most extensive nation upon earth.[[30]]

Had the Sandwich Islands been discovered at an early period by the Spaniards, there is little doubt that they would have taken advantage of so excellent a situation, and have made use of Atooi or some other of the islands as a refreshing place, in the ships that sail annually from Acapulco for Manilla. They lie almost midway between the first place and Guam, one of the Ladrones, which is at present their only port in traversing this vast ocean; and it would not have been a week’s sail out of their common route, to have touched at them, which could have been done without running the least hazard of losing the passage, as they are sufficiently within the verge of the easterly trade-wind. An acquaintance with the Sandwich Islands would have been equally favourable to our Buccaneers, who used sometimes to pass from the coast of America to the Ladrones, with a stock of food and water scarcely sufficient to preserve life. Here they might always have found plenty, and have been within a month’s sure sail of the very part of California, which the Manilla ship is obliged to make, or else have returned to the coast of America, thoroughly refitted, after an absence of two months. How happy would Lord Anson have been, and what hardships would he have avoided, if he had known that there was a group of islands, half way between America and Tinian, where all his wants could have been effectually supplied, and in describing which, the elegant historian of that voyage would have presented his reader with a more agreeable picture than I have been able to draw in this chapter?

CHAP. XIII.

OBSERVATIONS MADE AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, ON THE LONGITUDE, VARIATION OF THE COMPASS, AND TIDES.—PROSECUTION OF THE VOYAGE.—REMARKS ON THE MILDNESS OF THE WEATHER, AS FAR AS THE LATITUDE 44° NORTH.—PAUCITY OF SEA BIRDS, IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.—SMALL SEA ANIMALS DESCRIBED.—ARRIVAL ON THE COAST OF AMERICA.—APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.—UNFAVOURABLE WINDS, AND BOISTEROUS WEATHER.—REMARKS ON MARTIN DE AGUILLAR’S RIVER, AND JUAN DE FUCA’S PRETENDED STRAIT.—AN INLET DISCOVERED, WHERE THE SHIPS ANCHOR.—BEHAVIOUR OF THE NATIVES.

After the Discovery had joined us, we stood away to the northward, close hauled, with a gentle gale from the E.; and nothing occurring in this situation worthy of a place in my narrative, the reader will permit me to insert here the nautical observations which I had opportunities of making relative to the islands we had left; and which we had been fortunate enough to add to the geography of this part of the Pacific Ocean.

The longitude of the Sandwich Islands was determined by seventy-two sets of lunar observations; some of which were made while we were at anchor in the road of Wymoa, others before we arrived and after we left it, and reduced to it by the watch or time-keeper. By the mean result of these observations, the longitude of the road is

200°13ʹ0ʺE.
Time-keeper Greenwich rate,20200
Ulietea rate,200210
The latitude of the road, by the mean of two meridian observations of the sun215615N.

The observations for the variation of the compass did not agree very well among themselves. It is true, they were not all made exactly in the same spot. The different situations, however, could make very little difference. But the whole will be best seen by casting an eye on the following table.