The longitude of Port Royal Bay, as settled by Captain Wallis, was found to be within half a degree of its real situation. Point Venus, the northern extremity of the island, and the eastern point of the bay, lies in the longitude 149 degrees 30 minutes. Port Royal Bay, which is equal to any in Otaheite, may easily be discovered by a remarkable high mountain in the center of the island, bearing due south from Point Venus. The shore of the bay is a fine sandy beach, behind which runs a river of fresh water; any number of ships may water here without any inconvenience to each other. The only wood for firing, upon the whole island, is that of fruit-trees, which must be purchased of the natives, or it is impossible to live upon good terms with them.
According to Tupia’s account, the island could furnish above six thousand fighting men, whereby a computation of the number of inhabitants may easily be made.
The produce of Otaheite is bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, bananas, plantains; a fruit not unlike an apple, potatoes, yams, cocoas, sugar-cane, and a variety of other fruits and vegetables.
They have no European fruits, garden stuff, or pulse, nor grain of any species. Their tame animals are hogs, dogs, and poultry; there is not a wild animal in the island, except ducks, pigeons, parroquets, and a few other birds; rats being the only quadruped, and there are no serpents. The sea however supplies them with great variety of excellent fish.
With regard to the people, they are in general rather of a larger make than Europeans. The males are tall, robust, and finely shaped. The females of the superior class are likewise generally above our common size; but those of the lower rank are rather below it, and some of them are remarkably little.
Their natural complexion is a fine clear olive, or what we call _brunette_, their skin is delicately smooth and agreeably soft. The shape of their faces is in general handsome, and their eyes are full of sensibility and expression, their teeth are likewise remarkably white and regular, and their breath intirely free from any disagreeable smell; their hair is for the most part black. The men, unlike the original inhabitants of America, have long beards, which they wear in various forms; and what is very remarkable, circumcision is almost universally practised among them, from a motive of cleanliness; having a peculiar term of reproach, with which they upbraid those who do not adopt this custom. Both sexes always eradicate the hair from their arm-pits, and they often reproached the English gentlemen with a want of cleanliness, for not making use of the same method. Their motions are easy and graceful, but not vigorous; their deportment is generous and open, and their behaviour affable and courteous. They appeared of a brave, noble, and candid disposition; equally strangers to the base and unworthy passions of cruelty, treachery, or revenge, and setting aside their violent prepensity to thieving, it may fairly be said, that their general characters would lose nothing in the comparison with those of the most civilized nation under the globe.
Contrary to the custom of almost all other countries, the women of this island cut their hair quite short, whereas the men wear it long, sometimes hanging loose on their shoulders, and at others tied in a knot on the crown of their heads, in which they stick the feathers of birds of various colours.
Both sexes frequently wear a piece of cloth of the manufacture of the island tied round their heads in the form of a turban; and the women take no little pains in plaiting human hair into long strings, which being folded into branches, are tied on their foreheads by way of ornament.
There is a custom likewise prevalent among them of anointing their heads with an oil extracted from the cocoa-nut. The smell of which is not altogether agreeable, as the climate is hot, and they are not provided with any thing similar to a comb, their heads are not clear from vermin: it evidently appeared, however, to be more the effect of necessity than inclination, as those to whom they gave combs immediately got rid of these disagreeable companions.
They stain their bodies, by indenting or pricking the flesh with a small instrument made of bone, cut into short teeth; which indentures they fill with a dark blue or blackish mixture, prepared from the smoke of an oily nut, burnt by them instead of candles and water; this operation, which is called by the natives Tattaowing, is exceedingly painful, and leaves an indelible mark on the skin. It is usually performed when they are about ten or twelve years of age, and on different parts of the body; but those which suffer most severely are the breech and the loins, which are marked with arches, carried one above another a considerable way up their backs.
At the operation of _Tattaowing_, performed upon the posteriors of a girl about twelve years of age, Mr. Banks was present, it was executed with an instrument that had twenty teeth, and at each stroke, which was repeated every moment, serum mixed with blood issued. She bore it with great resolution for several minutes; but at length the pain became so violent, that she murmured and complained, and then burst into the most violent lamentations; but her operator was inexorable, whilst some females present chid, and even beat her. Mr. Banks was a spectator for near an hour, during which time it was performed only on one side, the other having undergone the ceremony sometime before; and the arches upon the loins, which are the most painful, but upon which they the most pique themselves, were yet to be made.
They cloath themselves in cloth and matting of various kinds; the first they wear in fair, the latter in wet weather. They are in different forms, no shape being preserved in them, nor are the pieces sewed together. The women of a superior class wear three or four pieces; one, which is of considerable length, they wrap several times round their waists, and it falls down to the middle of the leg. Two or three other short pieces, with a hole cut in the middle of each, are placed on one another, and their heads coming through the holes, the long ends hang before and behind, both sides being open, by which means they have the free use of their arms.
[Illustration: _A Woman & Boy, of the new discovered Islands, in the Dress of the Country._]
The mens dress is very similar, differing only in one instance, which is that part of the garment instead of falling below the knees, is brought between the legs. This dress is worn by all ranks of people, the only distinction being quantity in the superior class. At noon both sexes appear almost naked, wearing only the piece of cloth that is tied round the waist. Their faces are shaded from the sun with small bonnets, made of cocoa-nut leaves or matting which are constructed in a few minutes. The men sometimes wear a sort of wig, made of human or dogs hair, or of cocoa-nut strings, woven on a single thread, which is fastened under their hair, and hangs down behind. Both men and women wear ear-rings on one side, consisting of shells, stones, berries, or small pearls; but they soon gave the preference to the beads, brought by the Endeavour’s company.
The boys and girls go quite naked; the first till they are seven or eight years old; the latter till they are about five. Their houses, which have been described already, they seldom use but to sleep in, or to avoid the rain, as they eat in the open air, under the shade of a tree. Their clothes serve them at night for covering, and there are no divisions or apartments. The master and his wife repose in the middle, then the married people; next to these the unmarried females, and at a small distance the men who are unmarried; and the servants sleep in the open air in fair weather. The houses of the Chiefs, however, differ in some degree; there are some very small, and so built as to be carried in canoes: all sides of them are inclosed with the leaves of the cocoa-nut; the air, nevertheless, penetrates, in these the Chief and his wife alone sleep. There are also houses which are general receptacles for the inhabitants of a district. These are much larger, many being more than two hundred feet in length, forty in breadth, and seventy or eighty feet high. They are constructed at the common expence, and have an area on one side surrounded with low pallisades; but like the others have no walls.
When a Chief kills a hog, which is but seldom, he divides it equally among his vassals; dogs and fowls are more common.
When the bread-fruit in not in season, they are supplied by cocoa-nuts, bananas, plantains, &c.
Their cookery consists chiefly of baking, the manner of doing which has been already described. They bake their bread-fruit in the same way, which renders it something like a mealy potatoe; of this fruit three dishes are made, by beating it to a paste, and mixing it with bananas, plantains, or the sour paste, which the natives nominate _Mahie_.