Affairs now went on in the usual channel; but pork being still a scarce commodity, our Master, Mr. Mollineux, and Mr. Green went in the pinnace to the eastward, on the 8th, early in the morning, to see whether they could procure any hogs or poultry in that part of the country: they proceeded in that direction twenty miles; but though they saw many hogs, and one turtle, they could not purchase either at any price: the people every where told them, that they all belonged to Tootahah, and that they could sell none of them without his permission. We now began to think that this man was indeed a great Prince; for an influence so extensive and absolute could be acquired by no other. And we afterwards found that he administered the government of this part of the island, as sovereign, for a minor whom we never saw all the time that we were upon it. When Mr. Green returned from this expedition, he said he had seen a tree of a size which he was afraid to relate, it being no less than sixty yards in circumference; but Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander soon explained to him, that it was a species of the fig, the branches of which, bending down, take fresh root in the earth, and thus form a congeries of trunks, which being very close to each other, and all joined by a common vegetation, might easily be mistaken for one.

Voyaging Accounts