However, next day, this chief sent baskets of bananas and a roast pig, saying that it was a present from the "ariki" of the island to the "ariki" of the ship.
Cook called this archipelago the Friendly Islands. They had formerly received various names from Schouten and Tasman, as, Cocoa-nut Islands, Traitor Islands, Hope Islands, and Horn Islands.
Cook not having been able to obtain fresh water, was obliged to leave Tonga sooner than he wished. He found time, however, to make a few observations as to the productions of the country, and the manners of the natives. We will mention the most striking.
Nature had showered its treasures with a liberal hand upon Tonga and Eoa Islands. Cocoa-nuts, palm-trees, breadfruit-trees, yams, and sugar-canes are most plentiful there. As for edible animals, pigs and fowls alone were met with, but dogs if not existing there, are known by name. The most delicate fish abounds on the coast. Of much the same form as Europeans, and equally white, the inhabitants of these islands are well-proportioned and of pleasant features. Their hair is originally black, but they are in the habit of tinting it with powder, so that white, red, and blue hair abounds, which produces a singular effect. Tattooing is a universal practice. Their clothes are very simple, consisting of one piece of stuff, rolled round the waist, and falling to the knees. The women, who at Tonga, as everywhere else, are more coquettish than men, make aprons of cocoa-nut fibres, which they ornament with shells, and bits of coloured stuffs and feathers.
The natives have some singular customs, which the English had not noticed before. Thus they put everything that is given them on their heads, and conclude a bargain with this practice. When a friend or relation dies, they slash their limbs, and even some of their fingers. Their dwellings are not collected in villages, but are separate and dispersed among the plantations. Built in the same style as those of the Society Isles, they differ from them only in being raised higher above the ground.
The Adventure and Resolution sailed on the 7th of October, and the following day reconnoitred Pylstart Island, discovered by Tasman. On the 21st, anchor was cast in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. Cook landed a certain number of animals, which he wished to acclimatize, and set sail again to enter Queen Charlotte's Sound, but being caught in a great gale, he was separated from the Adventure, and did not meet her again until he reached England.
On the 5th of November the captain repaired the damages of his vessel, and before undertaking a new voyage in the southern seas, he wished to ascertain the extent and quality of his provisions. He reckoned that four thousand five hundred pounds of biscuits had been entirely spoiled, and that more than three thousand pounds were in scarcely better condition. During his stay here he obtained a new and still more convincing proof of the cannibalism of the natives of New Zealand. An officer had bought the head of a young man, who had been killed and eaten, and some natives seeing it, wished very much for a piece, Cook gave it up to them, and the avidity with which they threw themselves upon this revolting food, proved the pleasure that these cannibals took in eating food which they have difficulty in procuring.
The Resolution left New Zealand on the 26th of November, and entered the glacial regions which she had already traversed; but the circumstances attending her second voyage were distressing. The crew, though in good health, were overcome by fatigue, and less capable of resisting illness, the more so that they had no fresh food on board.
The Resolution had lost her consort, and the world was convinced that no Antarctic continent existed. It was, so to say, a "platonic" voyage. It was necessary to prove beyond the possibility of doubt that no new land of any importance was to be discovered in these latitudes.
The first ice was encountered on the 12th of December, and farther to the south than in the preceding year. From this date, the usual incidents of navigation in these latitudes were repeated day by day. OEdidi was quite astonished by the "white rain," as he called the snow which fell on his hand, but the sight of the first ice was a still greater marvel to him; he called it "white earth."