Their commerce with the inhabitants of Europe has, however, already entailed upon them that dreadful curse which avenged the inhumanities committed by the Spaniards in America, the venereal disease. As it is certain that no European vessel besides our own, except the Dolphin, and the two that were under the command of Mons. Bougainville, ever visited this island, it must have been brought either by one of them or by us. That it was not brought by the Dolphin, Captain Wallis has demonstrated in the account of her voyage, and nothing is more certain than that when we arrived it had made most dreadful ravages in the island. One of our people contracted it within five days after we went on shore, and by the enquiries among the natives, which this occasioned, we learnt, when we came to understand a little of their language, that it had been brought by the vessels which had been there about fifteen months before us, and had lain on the east side of the island. They distinguished it by a name of the same import with rottenness, but of a more extensive signification, and described, in the most pathetic terms, the sufferings of the first victims to its rage, and told us that it caused the hair and the nails to fall off, and the flesh to rot from the bones: that it spread a universal terror and consternation among them, so that the sick were abandoned by their nearest relations, lest the calamity should spread by contagion, and left to perish alone in such misery as till then had never been known among them. We had some reason, however, to hope that they had found out a specific to cure it: during our stay upon the island we saw none in whom it had made a great progress, and one who went from us infected, returned after a short time in perfect health; and by this it appeared either that the disease had cured itself, or that they were not unacquainted with the virtues of simples, nor implicit dupes to the superstitious follies of their priests. We endeavoured to learn the medical qualities which they imputed to their plants, but our knowlege of their language was too imperfect for us to succeed. If we could have learnt their specific for the venereal disease, if such they have, it would have been of great advantage to us, for when we left the island it had been contracted by more than half the people on board the ship.

Voyaging Accounts