On this day ...
27 June 1769
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
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Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Circumnavigation of the Island
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We proceeded on foot till we came to the district which was immediately under the government of the principal Chief, or King of the peninsula, Waheatua. Waheatua had a son, but whether, according to the custom of Opoureonu, he administered the government as regent, or in his own right, is uncertain. This district consists of a large and fertile plain, watered by a river so wide, that we were obliged to ferry over it in a canoe; our Indian train, however, chose to swim, and took to the water with the same facility as a pack of hounds. In this place we saw no house that appeared to be inhabited, but the ruins of many, that had been very large. We proceeded along the shore, which forms a bay, called OAITIPEHA, and at last we found the Chief sitting near some pretty canoe awnings, under which, we supposed, he and his attendants slept. He was a thin old man, with a very white head and beard, and had with him a comely woman, about five and twenty years old, whose name was TOUDIDDE. We had often heard the name of this woman, and, from report and observation, we had reason to think that she was the OBEREA of this peninsula. From this place, between which and the isthmus there are other harbours, formed by the reefs that lie along the shore, where shipping may lie in perfect security, and from whence the land trends S.S.E. and S. to the S.E. part of the island, we were accompanied by TEAREE, the son of Waheatua, of whom we had purchased a hog, and the country we passed through appeared to be more cultivated than any we had seen in other parts of the island: the brooks were every where banked into narrow channels with stone, and the shore had also a facing of stone, where it was washed by the sea. The houses were neither large nor numerous, but the canoes that were hauled up along the shore were almost innumerable, and superior to any that we had seen before, both in size and make; they were longer, the stems were higher, and the awnings were supported by pillars. At almost every point there was a sepulchral building, and there were many of them also in land. They were of the same figure as those in Opoureonu, but they were cleaner and better kept, and decorated with many carved boards, which were set upright, and on the top of which were various figures of birds and men: on one in particular, there was the representation of a cock, which was painted red and yellow, to imitate the feathers of that animal, and rude images of men were, in some of them, placed one upon the head of another. But in this part of the country, however fertile and cultivated, we did not see a single bread-fruit; the trees were entirely bare, and the inhabitants seemed to subsist principally upon nuts which are not unlike a chestnut, and which they call Ahee.
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© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 158 - 159, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/158.html