Chapter VIII
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On the 13th April, 1769, about two years after Wallis’s visit, and four months after the raid against Papara, Captain Cook entered Mata-ai Bay in H. M. bark, the "Endeavor," on his first voyage round the world. He found a chief, whose name he understood to be Tootahah, which would now be spelled Tutaha, exercising the powers of government in the district, and under Tootahah’s protection he set up his tents on Point Venus. A staff of scientific gentlemen were with him; among them Joseph Banks, afterwards Sir Joseph, who kept a diary, and Dr. Solander, a Swedish naturalist. Another person seems to have been with them who also kept a diary, which was published anonymously in 1772 as "A Journal of a Voyage round the World."
On the 28th April, a fortnight after their arrival, Banks was at work in a tent on shore, with a number of natives seated about, and looking at his doings, when the ship’s master entered.
"After breakfast", Banks wrote in his journal, "Jno Mollineux came ashore, and the moment he entered the tent, fixed his eyes upon a woman who was sitting there, and declared that she had been the queen when the ’Dolphin’ was here. She also instantly acknowledged him as a person whom she had seen before. Our attention was now entirely diverted from every other object to the examination of a personage
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© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 62, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-062.html