[3] "He, As Well As All His Countrymen, Had Not The Same Facility Of
Pronunciation As The Mallecollese; We Were Therefore Obliged To Tell
Him Our Names, Modified According To The Softer Organs Of The
Otaheitans.
His features were rather handsome, his eyes large and very
lively; and the whole countenance expressed good humour,
sprightliness, and acuteness.
To mention only a single instance of his ingenuity; it happened that
my father and Captain Cook, on comparing their vocabularies,
discovered that each had collected a different word to signify the
sky; they appealed to him to know which of the two expressions was
right; he presently held out one hand, and applied it to one of the
words, then moving the other hand under it, he pronounced the second
word; intimating that the upper was properly the sky, and the lower
the clouds which moved under it. His manners at table were extremely
becoming and decent; and the only practice which did not appear quite
cleanly in our eyes, was his making use of a stick, which he wore in
his hair, instead of a fork, with which he occasionally scratched his
head." - G.F.
[4] These people, according to Mr G.F., frequently alluded to this
horrid practice, and threatened it indeed to those of the crew that,
in opposition to their will, offered to go to certain spots on the
island. Hence, that gentleman infers the existence of the practice
among them, and perhaps with great justice, as there can be little or
no doubt that it either has prevailed or now prevails in all the
islands of the South Seas. - E.
[5] "We took a walk to the eastward along the shore of the bay, and
looked into the groves which skirted the flat hill before spoken of.
We found these groves to consist of coco-palms, and several species of
shady fig-trees, with eatable fruits, nearly of the size of the common
figs. We also observed several sheds, under which some of their canoes
were secured from the sun and weather; but there were no habitations,
except towards the eastern point. We found a path, which led through a
variety of bushes upon the flat hills. In our way to it, we crossed
some glades, or meadows, enclosed in woods on all sides, and covered
with a very rich herbage of the most vivid green. We passed through a
little airy grove, into several extensive plantations of bananos,
yams, eddoes, and fig-trees, which were in some places enclosed in
fences of stone two feet high." - G.F.
[6] "We took the opportunity of the absence of the natives, to walk
out upon the plain, behind the watering-place. We met with several
ponds of stagnant water, in which the natives had planted great
quantities of eddoes. The coco-palms formed spacious groves, full of
different shrubberies, where a great number of birds of different
sorts, chiefly fly-catchers, creepers, and parroquets, resided. We saw
likewise many lofty trees, covered with nuts, which are common at
Otaheite, (isrocarpus Nov.
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