I at first steered past the Society Islands, lying to leeward from Tahaiti, in order to rectify their longitude; and afterwards carefully endeavoured to avoid the course taken, to my knowledge, by any former navigator.
On the 25th of March we saw, to the north, the island of Guagein, and to the north-west that of Ulietea. When the western point of the latter lay due north from us, I found its longitude, according to our chronometers, 151° 26' 30", which is nearly the same as on the maps.
The island of Maurura, on the contrary, is very inaccurately laid down; we found the longitude of the middle of this island, as we sailed past its southern coast, to be 152° 10' 40". In the evening we had already cleared the Society Islands, and were pursuing a westward course.
On the following morning we perceived a cluster of low coral islands, connected by reefs, which, as usual, enclosed an inland sea. The country was covered with thick dwarf shrubs; and, in the whole group, we saw but one cocoa-tree rising solitarily above the bushes. A multitude of sea-birds, the only inhabitants of these islands, surrounded the vessel as we drew nearer. The group stretches about three miles from North to South, and is about two miles and a half broad. Guided by observations which, from the clearness of the atmosphere, I had been enabled to make correctly immediately before they came in sight, I estimated their latitude as 15° 48' 7" South; their longitude as 154° 30'. We were the first discoverers of these Islands, and gave them the name of our meritorious navigator, Bellingshausen.
The night was stormy: morning indeed brought cheerful weather, but no cheerful feelings to our minds, for we had lost another member of our little wandering fraternity; he died, notwithstanding all the efforts of our skilful physician, of a dysentery, occasioned by the continual heat and the frequently damp air. This same year the Tahaitians suffered much from a similar disease, and died in great numbers from the want of medical assistance. The Missionaries, who only desire to govern their minds, have never yet troubled themselves to establish any institution for the health of the body.
During this and the few succeeding days, the appearance of great flocks of sea-birds frequently convinced us that we must be in the neighbourhood of unknown islands; but as from the mast-head they can only be discerned at a proximity of fifteen or sixteen miles, we did not happen to fall in with them.
On the second of April, however, we passed a little uninhabited island, something higher than the coral islands usually are. Its latitude is 14° 32' 39" South, and its longitude 168° 6'. I then considered it a new discovery, and gave it the name of my First Lieutenant, Kordinkoff; but, on my return, I learned that it had been previously discovered by Captain Freycinet, on his voyage from the Sandwich Islands to New Holland, in the year 1819; the narrative of which had not appeared when I left Europe. The situation of this island, as he has given it, corresponds exactly with my own observation.
This same night, by favour of the clear moonshine, we saw the most easterly of the Navigators' Islands, Opoun, rising from the sea like a high round mountain. Westward from it, and close to each other, lie the little islands Leoneh and Fanfueh.[5] Near these is Maouna, with another little island at its north-east point. Forty-five miles further lies Ojalava, and ten miles and a half from it Pola, the largest, highest, and most westward of the group: connected with them are several other small islands, which I shall hereafter have occasion to mention.
As the chart which accompanies this volume accurately describes the geographical situation of all these islands, it is only necessary here to remark, that it was drawn up from the most diligent astronomical observations.