About the Work
New Discoveries Concerning the World and Its Inhabitants is a two-part compilation of voyage accounts published in London in the late eighteenth century, a period when European readers were hungry for reliable information about the islands of the Pacific and the frozen approaches to the poles. The volume gathers and digests the narratives of the major British and French expeditions of the preceding decade—Commodore Byron’s cruise in the Dolphin, Captain Wallis and Captain Carteret’s paired circumnavigation, Captain Cook’s three voyages of discovery, and M. de Bougainville’s French expedition—and sets them alongside the older testimony of navigators such as Mendoza, Quiros, Tasman, Le Maire, Schouten, Dampier, Roggewein, and Anson. Its stated purpose is comprehensive: to describe the situation, climate, and soil of the newly found islands of the South Sea; their animals and vegetables, including species previously unknown to Europeans; and the persons, dress, manners, customs, manufactures, buildings, government, and religion of their inhabitants, together with their domestic utensils, weapons, ingenuity, mental endowments, and skill in navigation. Part I also digests Cook’s attempts to find a Southern Continent in 1773, 1774, and 1775, and the Honourable Constantine John Phipps’s 1773 voyage toward the North Pole.
“The voyages that have been undertaken by the or- der of his prefent majefty, to explore the South-Sea and Polar Regions, are a ftriking exception to the”
The copy from which these notes are drawn is a scanned volume held in the Frank Burnett Collection at the Library of the University of British Columbia, a gift to the library donated by Mrs. Mary Litster. It opens with a “Map of the World in three Sections,” printed for J. Orr, which traces the tracts of Lord Mulgrave and Captain Cook toward the North and South Poles and lays down the new discoveries in the South Sea; the map was published as the Act directs on 19 January 1778, by L. Johnsen of St. Paul’s Church Yard, and engraved by Mr. Smith. The work is written in the third person throughout, moving between narrative, quotation from the voyagers’ journals, and reflective commentary on what the encounters reveal about human nature. It is not a single traveller’s memoir but a work of synthesis—an attempt to turn a scattered literature of discovery into one continuous account of the world’s newly enlarged surface and its peoples.
Context
The book belongs to the great age of Pacific exploration, when European governments sponsored voyages whose official aims were scientific and geographical but whose consequences were commercial, imperial, and moral. The preface makes the political context explicit. It argues that the progress of science has rarely been promoted by royal patronage, since the diffusion of knowledge is generally obnoxious to power; even the English Reformation found its supporter in a despot, and that must be attributed to political design rather than love of truth. When kings become professed patrons of the arts, they tend to favour those arts that soften and debilitate a state, congenial to an effeminate court, rather than those that serve humanity. The voyages undertaken by order of the reigning monarch to explore the South Sea and the polar regions are presented as a striking exception—worthy of a patriot king, and conferring honour on the nation as a maritime state.
The preface then lists what those voyages achieved. Geography was established on certain knowledge instead of conjectural delusion. The astronomer was supplied with discoveries concerning the heavenly bodies. Navigation was furnished with practical improvements. The naturalist saw a new world opening before him. Europe was made acquainted with about three million human beings scarcely known to exist. And the curious enquirer into the human mind in uncivilized society was supplied with abundant matter. This last point is the book’s moral centre. The preface insists that mankind does not appear degraded below its supposed rank in the scale of moral being: in the manners of these untutored people there is no premeditated rancour nor malevolent heart, but proofs of frankness, disinterested generosity, and innate goodness, from the ferocious New-Zealander to the gentle and voluptuous O-Taheitian. Manners in a state of nature are dissolute, the preface concedes, but this may be considered the exuberance of passions which, under proper culture, form the most elegant delights of social life. A further observation follows: mankind are led by a natural instinctive principle to form societies not only for personal security but for enjoyment, and are prone to consider their domestic circle as friends while viewing those further removed with jealousy or an inimical aspect. Even the most friendly islanders were provided with formidable weapons and expert in their use—a fact the narrative never allows the reader to forget.
Structure of the Book
The work is organized as a digest rather than a continuous narrative, and its architecture follows the sequence of the voyages themselves. It opens with front matter—the map of the world in three sections, the title and scope of the two parts, and a preface that states the argument about science and royal patronage and then summarizes the recent voyages in order. The first late voyage was Commodore Byron’s in the Dolphin, accompanied by the Tamar frigate under Captain Mouat: he sailed from Plymouth on 21 July 1764, passed through the Straits of Magelhaen, discovered several islands in the southern hemisphere, proceeded to the Ladrone Islands, refreshed his crew at Tinian, went to Batavia, returned to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored in Plymouth Sound on 9 May 1766. In August following, Captain Wallis in the Dolphin sailed on a second circumnavigation with Captain Carteret in the Swallow sloop; the ships parted company after the Straits of Magelhaen, Wallis steering more westwardly than any former navigator within the tropics and discovering O-Taheitee, which he named King George’s Island, while Carteret discovered the straits dividing New Britain from what is now called New Ireland. Wallis returned by the East Indies in May 1768 and Carteret by the same route in March 1769. In November 1766 Commodore Bougainville sailed from France, entered the Pacific by the Straits of Magelhaen, touched at O-Taheitee and the northern part of Tiera del Esperitu Santo, refreshed his crews in the very port Carteret had lately left in New Ireland, touched at Batavia soon after the Swallow‘s departure, fell in with that sloop after leaving the Cape of Good Hope, and returned to France about the same time.
From this frame the book proceeds to the islands themselves, beginning with the southern and more desolate discoveries before settling into its long central treatment of O-Taheitee and the Society Islands. It describes Carteret’s mountainous island, with its astonishing abundance of fish, seals, and birds; then Easter Island, first discovered by Davis and called Davis’s Land, visited by Roggewein in 1722, and named St. Carlos by a Spanish ship in 1770, with its barren volcanic surface, its brackish water, its colossal statues, and its scanty shrubs. It moves on to the Marquesas, their ornaments of coconut fibre, mother-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell, their dwellings, canoes, weapons, and language, and the violent episode in which a native thief was shot. Then comes the great set-piece on O-Taheitee: its climate and healthfulness, its trees and plants, its insects, reptiles, birds, beasts, and fishes; its eating customs and the segregation of the sexes at meals; its singular white-skinned men; its health, longevity, and diseases; its medicine and surgery; its thefts and the punishments that followed; the society of the arreoys and the practice of infanticide; its wrestling matches and other diversions; its ideas of adultery and public justice; its ranks, property, population, and government; its naval war; and its religion, with its priests’ language and its creation myth. Later sections follow the explorers to the neighbouring islands—Ulietea and Huaheine among them—and trace the planting of European seeds and the introduction of goats, sheep, and cats, the story of the marine Gibson who tried to conceal himself and become a naturalized O-Taheitean, the mysterious European known as O-Pabootie, and the departures of Oedidee and Omai. The book closes with the account of Omai’s embarkation for England, his reception, and his return—the final movement of a work that began with a map of the whole world and ends with one man carried across it.
Inside the Book
The Map, the Title, and the Case for Patronage
The volume opens with a world map in three sections, printed for J. Orr and engraved by Mr. Smith, laying down the tracts of Lord Mulgrave and Captain Cook toward the two poles and the new discoveries of the South Sea. The title page promises a circumstantial account of every island lately found or explored in the South Sea—their situation, climate, and soil, their unknown animals and vegetables, and the persons, dress, manners, customs, manufactures, buildings, government, and religion of their inhabitants, down to their utensils, weapons, and skill in navigation. The account draws on Byron, Wallis, Carteret, and Cook as reported by Hawkesworth, Parkinson, Forster, and Cook himself, set beside Bougainville and compared with the older narratives of Mendoza, Quiros, Tasman, Le Maire, Schouten, Dampier, Roggewein, and Anson; it also summarizes Cook’s attempts to find a Southern Continent in 1773–1775 and Phipps’s 1773 voyage toward the North Pole.
The preface turns argumentative. Science, it contends, has rarely been advanced by royal favour, since the diffusion of knowledge is generally obnoxious to power; the English Reformation was supported by a despot out of political design, not love of truth, and kings who profess to patronize the arts usually favour those that soften and debilitate a state. The present king’s voyages are the striking exception—worthy of a patriot king and conferring honour on a maritime nation. Their fruits are catalogued: geography exchanged conjecture for certainty, astronomy gained discoveries, navigation practical improvements, the naturalist a new world, and Europe acquaintance with some three million human beings scarcely known to exist. The enquirer into the human mind in uncivilized society finds abundant matter, and mankind does not appear degraded below its supposed rank: among these untutored people there is no premeditated rancour, but proofs of frankness, disinterested generosity, and innate goodness, from the ferocious New-Zealander to the gentle O-Taheitian. Manners in a state of nature are dissolute, but this is the exuberance of passions which proper culture might refine. People are led by instinct to form societies for enjoyment as well as security, yet even the friendliest islanders kept formidable weapons and knew their use.
The Voyages in Brief
The preface then summarizes the recent voyages. Byron sailed from Plymouth in July 1764 in the Dolphin with the Tamar, passed the Straits of Magellan, discovered islands in the southern hemisphere, refreshed at Tinian, went by Batavia and the Cape, and anchored at Plymouth in May 1766. In August following, Wallis in the Dolphin and Carteret in the Swallow sailed on a second circumnavigation; parting company after Magellan, Wallis steered farther west than any predecessor within the tropics and discovered O-Taheitee, which he named King George’s Island, while Carteret found the straits dividing New Britain from New Ireland. Wallis returned by the East Indies in May 1768, Carteret by the same route in March 1769. Bougainville left France in November 1766, entered the Pacific by Magellan, touched at O-Taheitee and the northern part of Tierra del Espiritu Santo, refreshed in the very port Carteret had lately left in New Ireland, reached Batavia soon after the Swallow‘s departure, fell in with that sloop after the Cape, and returned to France about the same time.
Carteret’s High Island and the Plenty of Its Seas
Carteret describes an island at 33°45′ south, 80°46′ west of Greenwich—very high and mountainous, appearing at a distance as a single triangular hill or rock some seven or eight leagues in circumference. Fish are so plentiful that a boat with a few hooks and lines may quickly catch enough for a hundred people: coal-fish, cavilliers, cod, halibut, and cray-fish, with one kingfish caught weighing eighty-seven pounds and measuring five and a half feet. Sharks were so ravenous that one swallowed the sounding lead, was hauled above water by it, and regained liberty by disgorging the prey. Seals swarm in such numbers that killing thousands in a night would not be missed the next morning; they yield excellent train oil, and their hearts and plucks taste something like hog, their skins covered in very fine fur. Many birds are present, including very large hawks, and the Swallow‘s crew caught seven hundred pintado birds in a single night.
Easter Island: A Volcanic Ruin and Its Colossi
Easter Island was first discovered by the Englishman Davis, who called it Davis’s Land; Roggewein visited it in 1722 and gave it its present name, though the writers of that voyage are said to have consulted fancy more than truth. The natives call it Wachu, according to Forster; Cook records three names—Zamareki, Whyhue, and Teapy. A Spanish ship visited in 1770 and named it St. Carlos Island, and European wearing apparel seen among the natives was procured from that visit. It lies in latitude 27°4′ south, longitude 109°46′ west, nearly triangular, about four leagues by two. The philosophical gentlemen with Cook conjectured recent violence from volcanic fires: the whole country is barren, in places bare rock without earth, the ground bespread with stones seemingly exposed to great fire, black and porous. Toward the north stands a single coherent lump of black melted lava, apparently containing iron ore, yet many proofs of former cultivation remain. Forster opines the island was first produced by a volcano, all its minerals being volcanic, and reduced to its present desolation by an eruption. The soil is dry hard clay, and though everywhere covered with stones, several large tracts are planted with potatoes and plantains, though no fruit was seen on any tree.
The island’s most remarkable curiosity is its colossal statues, very few remaining entire, placed only along the sea coast. On the east side were ruins of three stone platforms, each of which had borne four large statues, but all had fallen from two and one from the third, broken or defaced by the fall. Mr. Wales measured one fallen statue at fifteen feet long and six broad over the shoulders; each had on its head a large cylindric stone of red colour, wrought perfectly round. Others measured near twenty-seven feet and upwards of eight feet over the shoulders, and one still standing cast shade enough to shelter the whole party of near thirty persons from the sun. The workmanship is rude but not bad, the features not ill-formed, the ears long after the country’s fashion of distortion, the bodies hardly human in figure. How islanders unacquainted with mechanical power could raise such stupendous figures and set the cylindric stones on their heads is truly wonderful; the likeliest conjecture is that the stone is factitious and each figure was gradually erected by forming a temporary platform round it and raising it as the work advanced. They are strong proofs of the ingenuity and perseverance of the islanders in the age when built, and that the ancestors of the present race had seen better days.
Eating Apart, Sleeping Apart
The islanders were entirely unembarrassed by visitors arriving mid-meal, yet any woman who ate in a visitor’s company did so only when alone with him, and then with the greatest reluctance, extracting solemn promises of secrecy. Among themselves, even brothers and sisters kept separate baskets of provisions and their own utensils; when they first visited the tents, each brought his own basket, and at mealtimes they would withdraw, sit on the ground two or three yards apart with faces turned different ways, and eat without exchanging a word. The women not only abstained from eating with the men and from the same food, but had their victuals prepared separately by boys kept for that purpose, who left it in a separate shed and attended them at their meals. Yet this same people often invited the visitors to eat with them at the houses of particular acquaintances, sharing basket and cup—though the elder women always took offence at the liberty, throwing away any food or basket the visitors happened to touch.
Indolence and the White Men
After meals, and in the heat of the day, the middle-aged of the better sort generally slept; they were extremely indolent, sleeping and eating being almost all they did, while the old were less drowsy and the young kept awake by natural sprightliness. Among them were found five or six men of singular appearance: skins of a dead white, scurfy and downy, without complexion, with white hair, eyebrows and beard, ferret-like eyes and very short sight—considered freaks of nature, belonging to no particular race and apparently not propagating their kind.
Health, Longevity and Sickness
These islanders, living in huts exposed to every wind and sleeping on the earth with only a layer of leaves, were remarkably healthy and vigorous, reaching old age without its infirmities, their senses acute and their teeth beautiful to the last. Bougainville described an old man seen on landing whose only mark of age was the dignity imprinted on a fine figure—white hair and long white beard, body nervous and fleshy, neither wrinkles nor decrepitude. This venerable man seemed displeased at the strangers’ arrival, retiring without returning their courtesies, showing neither fear, astonishment nor curiosity; his thoughtful, suspicious air suggested he feared a new race of men would interrupt the happiness he had long enjoyed—and from this it could be inferred his mind was no more impaired than his body. There were, however, leprous complaints appearing as scaly cutaneous eruptions, and some with ulcers little regarded and untreated, not even kept free of flies; but such instances were rare, since the excellence of the climate and simplicity of vegetable food prevented almost all dangerous disorders. They suffered sometimes from colic and coughs, and the chiefs, who fared more sumptuously, were sometimes attacked by a gout-like disorder with swollen, painful legs. Bougainville’s surgeon assured him he had seen many with marks of smallpox.
Medicine and Surgery
Their usual method of restoring the sick was to pronounce a set form of words, after which the exorcist applied plaited cocoa-tree leaves to the fingers and toes, leaving nature to fight the disease unaided by any salutary art. Yet though utterly destitute of medical knowledge, they proved no inconsiderable proficients in surgery while the Dolphin lay there. A seaman ran a large splinter into his foot; a comrade failed with a pen-knife after great pain, but an old native, active in establishing good understanding between ship and countrymen, called a man from across the river, who examined the lacerated foot, fetched a shell from the beach, broke it to a point with his teeth, laid open the wound and extracted the splinter—while the old man went into the wood and returned with some gum.
Thefts, Punishments and Cook’s Arrival
Thefts became so notorious that Wallis would no longer permit islanders aboard; once they had seen the destruction a gun could produce, they generally returned what they had purloined when the piece was levelled at them. One fellow crossed the river and stole a hatchet; the gunner signalled an old man serving as commissary of trade, who returned it, and the reluctant surrender of the offender followed. Sent prisoner aboard, the captain, meaning only to punish by dread, terrified him sufficiently and freed him; the natives carried off the acquitted thief triumphantly, and next day, overcome by such lenity, he returned with bread-fruit and a roasted hog as a thank-offering. When Cook arrived in 1769, Dr. Solander and the surgeon Monkhoufe had their pockets picked—an opera-glass in a shagreen case and a snuff-box. Banks struck the butt of his firelock against the ground, spreading general panic; the chief, confusion and concern blended on his countenance, led Banks by the hand to a large quantity of cloth and offered it piece by piece as compensation, then returned with the snuff-box and glass-case, his face animated with joy—until, finding the case empty, violent concern succeeded, until the misunderstanding was adjusted by procuring the glass.
Toubourai Tamaide and the Butcher
This chief, friendly to Banks, was aboard when a knife was missed; the natives’ general character for thieving, with the chief seated next the loser, fixed strong suspicion on him, and Banks reluctantly accused him. He denied it positively; when the affair was cleared up—the knife taken not stolen, by one of the servants—the chief showed the strongest emotion, tears starting from his eyes, making signs with the knife that if guilty he would submit to have his throat cut. The people seemed happily free from rancorous resentment or revenge, and Banks, concerned at the groundless charge, atoned with presents and attention, obliterating the transaction from the placid chief’s breast. Later, when Tamaide had established a character for immaculate honesty, a parcel of nails larger than any produced in barter tempted him and he secretly took five; detected, he who was thought the only exception to general pilfering was found to possess the same spirit. His shame and sorrow were apparent; though he promised to return all, he chose rather to remove into the country than fulfil his engagements, and no persuasion could induce him to part with what he had acquired—great allowances being due, for an Indian among penny knives, beads, nails and broken glass is in the same state of trial as the meanest servant in Europe among unlocked coffers of jewels and gold. The ship’s butcher was charged by Tamaide with having obtained a stone hatchet from a woman by threats of death; found guilty, he was stripped and tied to the rigging to receive lashes. The natives watched attentively; at the first stroke they interposed, entreating pardon with great emotion, but an example being necessary they interceded in vain, expressing sorrow and pity by tears and exclamations.
The Chief’s Trick and the Governors
A chief visited Cook aboard the Resolution, presenting fruit including cocoa-nuts from which the liquor had been drawn and the shells thrown overboard—these he had picked up and tied in bundles so artfully the cheat was not at first perceived. Detected and shown his imposition, he betrayed no emotion, ate two or three himself as if knowing nothing of it, signifying satisfaction, then went ashore and sent plantains and bananas to compensate. At another time a musket was stolen; when Cook showed determination to have it delivered up or make severe reprisal, it was soon produced with several other things conveyed away.
Wallis’s Encounter and the Broken Treaty
When three hundred canoes carrying at least two thousand men surrounded the ship, with thousands more crowding the shore, the vessel’s guns quickly settled the inequality of the contest. A single shot cut a chief’s canoe asunder, and within half an hour the entire fleet had vanished and the shores were emptied. Peace was tendered soon after: an old man with a large white beard crept toward the lieutenant on his hands and knees, was raised up trembling, and was shown the stones thrown at the ship, the casks filled to signal a need for water, and the hatchets offered for trade. Confirmed in friendship with trifles, he danced round the planted staff and pendant, returned with green boughs, and eventually brought two live hogs to the ship, delivering a slow set speech as he handed over green plantain leaves one by one. He refused every present and paddled back to shore.
The treaty was soon broken. A watering party was attacked and retreated, leaving its casks behind, and when the natives pushed toward the ship in canoes they were fired upon and dispersed. To press the lesson home, guns were fired into the woods and at a hill where thousands sat in imagined safety; two balls falling near a tree sent the whole crowd out of sight in under two minutes. More than fifty canoes were destroyed on the beach, and only then did the natives return with green boughs, hogs, dogs, and cloth laid out as peace-offerings. The casks were returned, and the crew filled them with water.
A conference followed in which the old man, furious in looks and gestures, refused to accept that the natives had been the aggressors, but the jealousies gradually wore away. He became the broker for the Indians and the gunner for the crew, and provisions flowed in abundantly. A trivial accident strengthened the amity: when the surgeon shot a duck that fell dead among some natives, their panic was calmed by his signs.
Curiosities, Plantings, and the Stock of Animals
The chiefs grew importunate for curiosities from Tongo-Tabboo, Whyhie, and Waitahoo rather than English goods—baskets, clubs, and painted cloth of Easter Island pleased them excessively, and they coveted the mats of Amsterdam even when these resembled their own manufacture. Sailors exploited this taste by passing off O-Taheitee mats under another name, a deception that succeeded better than coloring feathers, revealing a similarity in the inclinations of human nature everywhere.
Efforts to plant European seeds largely failed. Wallis’s garden-seeds and fruit stones flourished briefly but left no remains; Cook’s melon-seeds and plants failed, supposedly because they had been sealed against fresh air; Bougainville’s wheat, barley, oats, rice, maize, and pot-herbs came to nothing except pumpkins, which the natives held in no esteem. Furneaux’s two goats, however, thrived: the ewe bore two female kids and was again with kid, the whole brood sleek and silky, and the people were fond of them, promising a new article of food that might spread across the islands. The sheep died except one, and twenty cats were left behind, while a more effectual supply of sheep and black cattle sailed with the Resolution and Enterprise in July 1776.
Gibson, O-Pabootie, and the Departure
A marine named Gibson, delighted with the island, tried to conceal himself and become a naturalized O-Taheitean, but was traced and brought back; his proficiency in the language had recommended him greatly to the natives. The Indians revealed that a Spaniard had deserted and lived at Tiarrabou, esteemed by Abeatua, king of the smaller peninsula—but when they saw this excited their guests’ curiosity, they grew reserved and finally said he was dead, though some of the crew glimpsed a European-like man who hastily retreated. He was known as O-Pabootie.
When the Resolution was leaving the second time, O-Ta0 came aboard to dinner and urged the elder Forster and Hodges to stay, promising to make them arees of two rich districts. As the ship got under sail, an Irish sailor who had plotted escape with the natives slipped secretly overboard.
Oedidee and Omai
Curious ceremonies were performed by the ship’s company, but the midshipman who reported them could relate none, leaving the manners of the people unknown. Adabine embarked for Huahine, leaving his new-married lady behind. Oedidee, their faithful companion, chose to remain in his native country but left with visible regret; he repeatedly took Cook aside to ask whether ships would return, and when he finally went away he looked up at the ship, burst into tears, and sank into the canoe. Just before leaving he asked Cook to “tatou fume parou” for him, and the captain complied, giving him a certificate of his time on board and recommending him to any who might touch there after him.
Omai, improperly called Omiah, was a native of Raieiew who had embarked with Furneaux in 1773. Not one of the arees but of the common people, he was eminent neither for stature, shape, nor complexion, yet Forster and Cook agreed that no native would have given more general satisfaction in England. He possessed a good understanding, quick parts, and honest principles, and made an amazing proficiency at chess. Patronized by the earl of Sandwich, Banks, and Solander, he was introduced to the king at Kew and caressed by the nobility, imitating their easy politeness. Yet he was treated rather as a fashionable exhibition than a rational being: no one enriched his mind with useful knowledge, instructed him in agriculture or manufacture, or taught him a moral sense. After two years, inoculated for small-pox, he embarked with Cook loaded with presents, his tears flowing at parting, though his return home had always been in his thoughts.
The Society Islands
The Society Islands—six in number, named by Cook in 1769—lie close together between longitude 150° 57′ and 152° west, about forty leagues west of O-Taheitee. Cook says benevolent nature spread her luxuriant sweets lavishly, and the natives, copying her bounty, contribute plentifully to navigators; Forster describes them as ready at all times to perform kind offices, carrying their guests in and out of boats on their backs.
Forster attributed differences among islanders to the varied treatment they received from Europeans. One native aboard the Resolution had a monstrous hernia yet moved with agility. The people mix cocoa-nuts with yams into a food called poss, an oily hasty pudding pleasant when fried. They are stout, large-made, some over six feet three, extremely indolent and little curious. Dogs are in great favour with the women, who could not have caressed them more ridiculously had they been European ladies of fashion; one woman, her breasts full of milk, offered them to a puppy, explaining she let little pigs do the same, having lost her child. Respect is shown by stripping to the waist, and hospitality is less celebrated than at O-Taheitee, reciprocal presents being almost unknown.
Their boat-houses are larger than elsewhere, one measuring fifty paces long, ten broad, and twenty-four feet high, a pointed arch like an old cathedral, its posts rudely carved with heads and fanciful devices.
The Friendly Islands: Ornaments, Music, and Craft
The passage opens on the Friendly Islands, drawing on the voyages of Captain Cook and the Forsters, with references back to Tasman. The people ornament themselves modestly: bracelets of bone, shell, and mother-of-pearl beads are worn by both sexes, and women add neat tortoise-shell rings and small ear pieces, though all ears are pierced and ornaments are not common. A curious apron is fashioned from the outer husk of the cocoa-nut, sewn into stars, half-moons, and little squares, studded with beads and shells and covered with red feathers. Their cloth, made from the same materials as at Tahiti, is less varied and coarser, but a glazing technique makes it more durable and rain-resistant; its colours—black, brown, yellow, purple, red—all come from vegetables. They weave fine matting for clothing and thicker matting for sleeping and canoe sails, and make durable, beautifully coloured baskets studded with shell or bone beads, showing real taste in design and skill in execution. Fishing gear resembles that of other islands, including a casting-net of firm, slender thread.
Despite their friendly disposition, they possess formidable weapons like those at Middleburgh, some spears heavily barbed and dangerous. A large flat breastplate was purchased, made from a roundish bone white and polished like ivory, about eighteen inches across, apparently from a whale. Women often entertained the visitors with agreeable songs, always snapping their fingers to keep time. Only two instruments were seen: a small bamboo flute sounded through the nostrils, ornamented with burnt-in figures and pierced with four or five holes, and a set of ten or eleven slender reeds bound side by side like the ancient Doric pipe, producing no more than four or five notes and never a full octave. They also have a drum hollowed from a single log, five or six feet long, with a long slit, beaten with two sticks to produce a hollow, not-quite-musical sound. They bake meat in ovens like other South Sea islanders.
Canoes and the Custom of the Head
Their canoes exceed everything of the kind in these seas in neatness and workmanship, built of pieces sewn together so neatly that the joints are hard to see, with all fastenings concealed inside. Single canoes run twenty to thirty feet long, with decks at each end sometimes decorated with rows of white shells, and outriggers, paddled more often than sailed. Double canoes are far larger—two vessels of sixty or seventy feet lashed parallel about six or seven feet apart by cross beams, supporting a boarded platform. So strongly and lightly are they built that they may be immersed to the platform without filling, and cannot sink so long as they hold together, making them fit for distant navigation. They are rigged with a single mast and a lateen sail of mats, with rope laid like European cordage, and carry a little shed for shelter and a moveable fire hearth. The same custom of putting everything on the head prevails here as at Middleburgh—a compliment taught from infancy, applied to goods in exchange, and the signal that a bargain was struck.
The Discovery of the New Hebrides
The northern islands of this archipelago were first discovered by Quiros in 1606 and thought part of a supposed southern continent; Bougainville visited them in 1768 and called them the Great Cyclades; Captain Cook ascertained their extent, added several before unknown, and named them the New Hebrides. They lie between latitudes 14°29′ and 20°4′ south, extending some 125 leagues, and include Tierra del Esperitu Santo, Mallicollo, the Isle of Lepers, Tanna, and others; smoke seen on the Peak of the Etoile proved a volcano there. Esperitu Santo, the largest and most western, is high, mountainous, and populous. Its people approached in canoes—stout, very dark, woolly-haired, naked but for feathers, shell ornaments, and a matted belt—carrying only fish-gigs. They kept their distance until nails, medals, and red baize were offered, nails being most coveted, and they fastened a pepper-plant branch to a rope as an emblem of friendship. Their diffidence was explained by tradition: when Quiros anchored long before, a chief drew a line on the ground forbidding passage; the commander crossed it, and firearms killed the king and many followers. Quiros reported cows, buffaloes, and pearls, which later navigators could not confirm, and Forster regretted not landing on what seemed one of the finest countries in the world.
Mallicollo and the Poisoned Fish
Mallicollo, the most considerable island after Esperitu Santo, is fertile and well inhabited, its name closely resembling one Quiros had recorded 168 years earlier. Its productions included cocoa-nuts, bread-fruit, bananas, sugar-canes, yams, and turmeric, though Cook thought the fruits inferior to those of the Society and Friendly Islands; hogs and poultry were domestic, and a brace of Tahitian puppies was received and called “hogs,” suggesting the animal was not unknown. A shark nine feet long was caught and eaten, and inside it was found the bony point of an arrow shot through its skull, the wound perfectly healed. Two large reddish sea-bream were then caught and eaten by the officers; the following night all who had eaten were seized with violent head and bone pains, scorching skin, and numb joints, while hogs and dogs that partook were poisoned, one hog swelling and dying.
The Skirmish at Tanna
At Tanna, a chief and his people received the visitors with tokens of amity, signalling for water and accepting a yam and cocoa-nuts—yet the whole group stood armed with clubs, spears, darts, and bows, exciting suspicion. As the guests prepared to depart, the islanders tried to haul the boat ashore and snatched oars, the chief leading them. Signs and threats failed; Cook, unwilling to fire into the crowd, resolved to make the chief alone the victim of his own treachery, but his musket missed fire at the critical moment. Stones, darts, and arrows followed, and a general discharge of firearms could no longer be avoided; it threw the islanders into confusion, though a second volley was hardly enough to drive them from the beach. Four lay to all appearance dead, two afterwards crawling into the bushes; not half the muskets would go off, which saved many lives. One man was wounded in the cheek by a dart that entered two inches, and an arrow struck the master’s breast but barely pierced the skin. A swivel shot and a great gun fired from the ship panicked the natives into the bushes, and with this unhappy skirmish all intercourse ended.
Tanna and Its Volcano
Tanna lies six leagues south of Erromango, about eight leagues long and twenty-four in circuit, its name meaning “earth” in the Malay language. Its soil is rich black mould in places, elsewhere decayed vegetables and volcanic ash, and a volcano about eleven miles west burned with great fury. During the sixteen days Cook stayed, it vomited fire and smoke with an explosion about once every five minutes, some resembling thunder claps, filling the air with smoky particles and ashes that pained the eye; great stones were thrown up, some as large as a long-boat. The fires made a magnificent sight, smoke rolling up in thick volumes coloured yellow, orange, crimson, and purple, tinging the forests with the same hues at each explosion.
Queen Charlotte’s Islands and Byron’s Island
The narrative turns first to the Queen Charlotte Islands, discovered by Captain Carteret in the Swallow in 1767—seven islands counted, with more suspected within the cluster. Fresh water abounds but no edible vegetables, and the natives are black, woolly-haired, and entirely naked. When Captain Wallis sent a party ashore for provisions, their supercilious haughtiness provoked the islanders into a skirmish in which the ship’s master and three seamen were wounded by arrows and later died. Grape shot fired into the woods drove the harassed natives from that part of the island, leaving the watering parties undisturbed; the commander is exculpated, since the insult that provoked them contravened his express orders. These nimble, vigorous people, almost as much at home in the water as on land, are thought to be the Santa Cruz of Mendana, who died there in 1595.
Byron’s Island, discovered by Commodore Byron in July 1765, proved impossible to anchor near, though it appeared some four leagues long and densely peopled. Above a thousand natives gathered on the beach and more than sixty canoes encircled the ship. One islander swam aboard, ran up the side, burst into laughter, and raced about the vessel attempting to steal whatever he could; dressed by the seamen in a jacket and trousers, he produced great merriment, ate bread voraciously, and finally leaped overboard in his new apparel. These people are tall, clean-limbed, bright copper-coloured, with long black hair and countenances mixing intrepidity and cheerfulness, naked save for shell ornaments. One man of consequence wore a string of human teeth about his waist—a trophy he would not part with—and their weapons included spears edged for three feet with sharks’ teeth as sharp as lancets.
The Discovery and Extent of New Zealand
The account then opens its chapter on New Zealand, first visited by the Dutch navigator Abel Janssen Tasman in November 1642. Traversing the north-eastern coast and entering the strait now called Cook’s Strait, he was attacked by the natives soon after anchoring; three of his men were killed and a fourth mortally wounded. He named the road Murderer’s Bay and gave the whole country the name New Zeeland, long supposed part of a southern continent. Captain Cook visited in 1769 and 1770, circumnavigated both islands, and returned three times in 1773 and 1774. The islands lie between latitudes 34 and 47 degrees south; the northernmost is called Eaheinomauwe, the southernmost Zovy or Tovai-Poenammoo, the latter’s greatest width stretching from Dusky Bay to Cape Saunders.
The Birds, Beasts, and Fish of New Zealand
The natural history of the country is surveyed in detail. Among the ducks are a beautifully variegated painted-duck, a brown species with bright green wing feathers, a blue-grey “whistling duck” with a soft cartilaginous bill-end, an all-black species larger than a teal, and a smaller greenish-black one with a golden eye and white bar in the quills. Small birds include the wattle-bird, the poy-bird—noted for its sweet note and delicious flesh, the greatest luxury of Dusky Bay’s woods—and the fan-tail, whose most remarkable sort has a body scarcely larger than a filbert yet spreads a tail over three-quarters of a semicircle. Dogs and rats are the only known quadrupeds. The natives eat dogs and use their skins as Europeans use fur or ermine, keeping them tied by a string round the middle; remarkably, these dogs eat the bones of their own kind, and a New Zealand puppy aboard the Resolution devoured dog flesh and bones from birth, while European dogs turned away. Dog flesh, adopted by the officers as relief from salt provisions, tasted exactly like mutton. The surrounding seas swarmed with unknown and delicious fish, immense shoals of mackerel, and the sea cray-fish that Cook called the highest luxury the sea afforded.
The Persons, Dress, and Manners of the New Zealanders
The New Zealanders equal the tallest Europeans in stature—stout, well-limbed, vigorous, and unusually dexterous, though their legs and feet are distorted from sitting cross-legged in canoes. Their complexion is brown, their countenances intelligent and expressive; the women are plain and paint their faces with red ochre and oil. A marked difference appeared between the two islands: the northerners were tall, much tattowed, and well clothed, while the southerners were miserable-looking wretches, few tattowed or oiled. Their temper is irascible and impatient of indignity: one man, taking fire at a slight, uttered threats and violent gestures; another, after a sailor reclaimed a stolen jacket and was struck for it, pelted him with stones until the seaman answered in the English manner of boxing and sent him off with a black eye and bloody nose. A boy of about fourteen, given Madeira and then sweet Cape wine, grew voluble and elevated, capered about the cabin, demanded the captain’s boat-cloak and an empty bottle, and when refused seized a table-cloth, stamped, threatened, grunted, and finally fell into sullen silence—”a very just sample of the impatient temper of these people.”
Tupia Remembered, and the Two Tribes
Among the visitors were expressive-faced old men with grey and white beards and young men with bushy hair hanging wildly over their faces. It seemed extraordinary that enquiries after Tupia, and concern at his death, were more earnest here than at O-Taheitee: so valuable and beloved had his superior knowledge and ability to converse in their language made him, even among a people in a state of barbarism. Perhaps, the text muses, with his capacity cultivated only by the simplicity of his native manners, he was better qualified to lead the New Zealanders toward civilization than their more enlightened European friends. A striking scene of hospitality followed at Queen Charlotte’s Sound: a native family aboard the Resolution urgently warned that an approaching double canoe held enemies and begged the officers to fire. The head of the family leaped onto the arm-chest, brandished a green nephritic hatchet, and harangued the newcomers vehemently; when he fell silent, a man in the canoe delivered a long, well-articulated speech—questioning, boasting, threatening, challenging, persuading—before being invited aboard. Despite the enmity exchanged, the two tribes saluted each other cordially with the usual application of noses, the same compliment paid to every person on the quarter-deck. At other times the natives demonstrated their methods of attack and defence, mounting the fighting stage called porava, singing the war-song, and dancing with frightful gesticulations to work themselves into the mechanical fury that precedes battle among uncivilized nations.
Religion, Burial, and Mourning
Their ideas of the world’s origin resemble those of O-Taheitee: they acknowledge a Supreme Being and inferior divinities, a polytheism so correspondent to the Taheitians’ that it must derive from common ancestors. Yet no ceremony observed in New Zealand seemed religious, and they appeared to have no priests; Tupia, whenever he instructed them, commanded a numerous and reverent audience.
The People of New Holland
The narrative turns to the inhabitants of New Holland, whose voices are remarkably soft and effeminate. They encrust their bodies with dirt until they appear as black as negroes, crop their naturally long black hair short, and singe their bushy beards to keep them short. Neither sex has any sense of indecency in exposing the whole body. They perforate the cartilage dividing the nostrils and thrust through it a bone as thick as a man’s finger and five or six inches long, which reaches across the face and stops both nostrils, forcing them to keep their mouths wide open to breathe and to snuffle so badly when speaking that they are scarcely intelligible even to one another. Beyond this nose-jewel they wear necklaces of neatly cut and strung shells, bracelets of small cord wound about the upper arm, and a string of plaited human hair tied round the waist; some wear gorgets of shells across the breast. They paint their bodies white and red and draw a circle of white round each eye. They have holes in their ears but nothing was seen worn in them. So attached are they to their own ornaments that they preferred them to any beads and ribbons offered, though more showy; they accepted gifts but showed no sense that anything was expected in return, and many trinkets were later found thrown negligently away in the woods like children’s playthings. Many bodies bore large scars, apparently the remains of wounds inflicted on themselves with some blunt instrument, which they signified by signs to be memorials of grief for the dead.
There was no appearance of a town or village in the whole country. Their houses are formed without art or industry, some just high enough for a man to stand upright in but not large enough for him to extend his whole length in any direction. They are built of pliable rods stuck into the ground in the form of an oven and covered with palm-leaves and broad pieces of bark, with a large hole at one end for a door. Under these sheds they sleep coiled up with heels to head, a position in which one will hold three or four persons. Toward the north, as the climate grows hotter, the sheds were constructed much slighter, one side entirely open and none more than four feet deep. These hovels were set up occasionally by a wandering horde wherever subsistence could be found for a time, and left behind when they moved on. When staying only a night or two they sleep without shelter except bushes and grass. They have a vessel to hold water fetched from springs, made of bark by tying up the two ends with a withy that serves for a handle. They have a small bag, about the size of a moderate cabbage-net, which the men carry on their backs by a string passing over their heads; it generally contains a lump or two of paint and resin, some fish-hooks and lines, a shell or two out of which their hooks are made, a few points of darts, and their usual ornaments — the whole worldly treasure of the richest man among them. Their fish-hooks are very neatly made, some extremely small. For striking turtle they have a peg of wood about a foot long and very well bearded, fitting into a socket at the end of a staff of light wood about as thick as a man’s wrist and seven or eight feet long. To the staff is tied one end of a loose line about three or four fathoms long, the other end fastened to the peg. To strike the turtle the peg is fixed into the socket, and when it has entered the body and is retained by the barb, the staff flies off and serves for a float to trace the victim in the water and to tire him till they can overtake him with canoes and haul him ashore. One such peg was found buried in the body of a turtle, which had healed over it. Their lines are made of the fibres of a vegetable, from the thickness of a half-inch rope to the fineness of a hair. They are unacquainted with nets in fishing, and can only catch fish by striking them, or with hook and line, or groping for them in hollows of rocks and shoals dry at half-ebb. They bake provisions by help of hot stones, like the inhabitants of the South-Sea Islands. They produce fire with great facility. Taking two pieces of dry, soft wood, one a stick eight or nine inches long and the other flat, they shape the stick into an obtuse point at one end and, pressing it upon the other, turn it nimbly between both hands as we do a chocolate-mill, often shifting hands up and then moving them down to increase pressure. By this method they get fire in less than two minutes, and from the smallest spark increase it with great speed and dexterity.
Captain Cook relates having often seen one of them run along the shore, to all appearance with nothing in his hand, who stooping down for a moment at the distance of every fifty or one hundred yards left fire behind him, as they could see first by the smoke and then by the flame among the drift wood and other litter scattered along the place. They had the curiosity to examine one of these “planters of fire” when he set off, and saw him wrap up a small spark in dry grass, which when he had run a little way, having been fanned by the air, burst into flame.
New Guinea, New Britain, and the Ladrone Islands
The account moves on to a plant called Indian kale in the West Indies, used as greens by a ship’s company. Many nests of white ants were seen, resembling those in the East Indies and described as the most pernicious insect in the world. A wolf was reportedly seen by a midshipman, and this account was strengthened by what Twria saw and described. On the shore, cockles of enormous size were found, one more than two men could eat. Very few Indians were seen, and those discovered fled at the approach of the strangers; after some time, intercourse was established. Ovens dug in the ground, similar to those at O-Tabeitee, were found. The natives are of common stature but with remarkably small limbs; their skin is dark chocolate, caused by sleeping in dirt and smoke to avoid mosquitoes, which are almost insupportably tormenting. Their hair is black but not woolly, short cropped, some lank and others curled. They paint parts of their bodies red; one seen had his upper lip and breast painted white. Their features were good, eyes lively, teeth even and white, voice soft and tunable. They repeated many words after the gentlemen with great facility. The disposition to alter the human form is prevalent worldwide; one native was distinguished by an ornament: a bird bone, nearly as thick as a man’s finger and five or six inches long, thrust into a hole made in the gristle dividing the nostrils. Many instances were seen in the New-Hebrides, and only one in New-Zeeland; upon examination, it was found that among all this people, this part of the nose was perforated to receive an ornament of the same kind. The practice of piercing the middle cartilage of the nose and thrusting a stone through it is perhaps peculiar to the western islands in the South Sea visited by Europeans, and prevails there among both sexes. The ideas of beauty and personal ornaments differ worldwide; some Indians pride themselves on the extent of their ear lobes, stretching them to hang on their shoulders, similar to American Indians who stretch the cartilaginous part of their ears horizontally by perforating them and forcing them out with stones or wires until they meet at the top of the head.
Main Arguments
The book’s central claim is that the voyages of discovery have replaced conjecture with knowledge. Before them, the geography of the South Sea was a field of guesswork; after them, it was established fact. The preface treats this as the first and most obvious result, but it is not the one the book cares most about. The deeper argument concerns what the encounters reveal about human nature. The voyagers found, in societies without letters, metals, or revealed religion, people who displayed frankness, disinterested generosity, and innate goodness. The ferocious New-Zealander and the gentle O-Taheitian both belong to the same moral species as the European. The dissoluteness of manners in a state of nature is not evidence of depravity but the exuberance of passions that culture could refine.
At the same time, the book refuses to sentimentalize. It records theft, violence, and cruelty with the same steadiness as it records hospitality and generosity. The islanders stole persistently, and the explorers punished them, sometimes with a severity that the narrative itself presents as excessive. The natives of the Marquesas were shot at for stealing an iron stanchion, and one was killed by an officer who fired contrary to orders. The arreoys practiced infanticide and boasted of their childlessness. The book’s argument is not that the islanders were noble savages but that they were fully human—capable of the same virtues and vices as Europeans, and intelligible by the same standards. The preface’s observation that mankind are led by natural instinct to form societies for enjoyment as well as security, and to view strangers with jealousy, applies as much to the Europeans as to the islanders.
A third argument concerns the effects of contact. The book documents the failure of European attempts to improve the islands: Wallis’s garden seeds vanished, Cook’s melon seeds failed, Bougainville’s wheat and barley came to nothing, and only pumpkins survived. The goats given to King O-Too thrived, and the cats multiplied, but the sheep died. The narrative does not draw a moral from this so much as let it stand as a fact—the islands were not easily remade. Meanwhile the islanders themselves showed a preference for the curiosities of other islands over English goods, a fact the book reads as evidence of a general similarity in human inclinations: all nations not in a state of savage barbarism desire what is rare and foreign. The book’s final argument, implicit throughout, is that the encounter was mutual and transformative on both sides, and that its full meaning was not yet clear.
Key Concepts
Several concepts recur throughout the book and give it its intellectual shape. The first is the distinction between knowledge and conjecture. The preface frames the voyages as a passage from “conjectural delusion” to certainty, and the narrative repeatedly contrasts what earlier navigators reported with what the new observers actually saw. Roggewein’s account of Easter Island is said to have consulted fancy more than truth; the philosophical gentlemen with Cook conjectured that the island had suffered a recent volcanic eruption, and their conjecture is presented as reasoned inference from the black, porous, melted rock they found.
The second concept is the scale of moral being. The preface uses this phrase to pose the question the book exists to answer: do these newly discovered peoples rank below or alongside Europeans in the moral order? The answer, built up through hundreds of pages of observation, is that they do not rank below. The concept organizes the book’s treatment of every custom, from the Tahitian practice of washing in the drinking well to the Marquesan king’s lack of ceremony among his attendants.
The third concept is the arreoy—the childless society of the Society Islands, whose members enjoyed privileges and prestige, and whose existence the book interprets as a piece of political subtlety. By preventing the too rapid increase of the nobility, the institution resembles the consignment of superfluous daughters to cloisters in Roman Catholic countries. The book’s dispute with Mr. Forster over whether the arreoys practiced promiscuous intercourse is one of its few explicit scholarly disagreements, and it shows the author weighing testimony and arguing from probability.
The fourth concept is the lusus naturae—the five or six men of singular appearance found on O-Taheitee, with dead-white scurfy skins, white hair and eyebrows, ferret-like eyes, and short sight. The book considers them freaks of nature, of no particular race, and notes that they do not appear to propagate their like. The concept marks the limits of eighteenth-century racial classification.
The fifth is the idea of the European who goes native. The marine Gibson, who concealed himself to become a naturalized O-Taheitean and was brought back to his station; the unnamed Spaniard who deserted and lived at Tiarrabou under the name O-Pabootie; the Irish sailor who slipped overboard as the Resolution was getting under sail—these figures recur as a quiet counterpoint to the official narrative of discovery. They suggest that the islands exercised a pull on some Europeans that the voyage accounts could not fully explain.
Themes
The book’s deepest theme is the encounter between civilizations and what it reveals about the unity of humankind. The preface states the theme directly: Europe was made acquainted with about three million human beings scarcely known to exist, and the manners of these untutored people show no premeditated rancour or malevolent heart. The narrative then tests that proposition against an enormous range of evidence. It finds generosity and theft, hospitality and violence, in the same communities and sometimes in the same individuals. Tamaide, who had established a character for immaculate honesty, secretly took five nails when a parcel larger than any produced in barter tempted him; his shame and sorrow were apparent, but he chose to remove into the country rather than return them. The book’s comment is characteristic: great allowances ought to be made for the pilfering propensity, for an Indian among penny knives, beads, nails, and broken glass is in the same state of trial as the meanest servant in Europe among unlocked coffers of jewels and gold.
A second theme is the fragility of cross-cultural understanding. The treaty of peace between Wallis’s crew and the Tahitians was ratified with elaborate ceremony—the old man with the white beard dancing round the pendant, the green boughs, the hogs laid at the foot of the staff—and broken almost immediately. The conference that followed was conducted in signs and gestures, with the old man furious and unpersuaded, and reconciliation came only gradually, helped by a trivial accident: the surgeon shot a wild duck that fell dead among the natives, and the panic it caused had to be calmed by signs. The book returns repeatedly to the inadequacy of language and the reliance on gesture, and to the misunderstandings that arose when neither side could explain itself.
A third theme is the moral ambiguity of punishment. The book records the shooting of the Marquesan thief with evident discomfort: Captain Cook had given orders to fire over the canoe but not to kill anyone, and an officer less patient than reason and humanity should have taught him levelled his musket at the poor fellow and shot him through the head. The dead man’s son watched with a serious and dejected countenance, and the man’s female relations remained at the top of the mountain to weep and mourn. Yet the islanders were not estranged by the killing, and trade continued to the satisfaction of both parties. The book does not resolve the ambiguity; it presents it.
A fourth theme is the transience of improvement. The garden seeds failed, the sheep died, the islanders preferred the mats of Amsterdam to English goods, and the one European who tried to stay was brought back. The book’s final sections dwell on departure—Oedidee bursting into tears and sinking into his canoe, Omai embarking for England and being treated as a fashionable exhibition rather than a rational being. The theme is not stated as a lament but it accumulates through the narrative: the encounter changed both sides, but not in the ways either had planned.
The Author’s Conclusions
The book concludes with the story of Omai, and it is through him that its final judgments are delivered. Omai—improperly called Omiah—was a native of Vitetea, or Raieiew, one of the Society Islands, who embarked with Captain Furneaux on board the Adventure in September 1773. The two ships separated in a storm on the coast of New-Zeeland a few months afterwards, and the Adventure arrived at Spithead on 14 July following. Omai was not one of the arees, or gentry, but of the fiddling last of people; he was eminent neither for stature, shape, nor complexion, his colour being of a deep hue resembling a towtow, or one of the common people. Mr. Forster and Captain Cook agree that he was no proper sample of the inhabitants of these islands in respect to personal beauty, but both are of opinion that the qualities of his heart and head resembled those of his countrymen in general, and that no one of the natives would have given more general satisfaction by his behaviour while he remained in England. He possessed a good understanding, quick parts, and honest principles; he was not an extraordinary genius like Tupia, but not at all deficient in intelligence, which appears from his knowledge of the game of chess, in which he made an amazing proficiency.
His principal patrons in England were the earl of Sandwich, Mr. Banks, and doctor Solander. His noble patron introduced him to his majesty at Kew, and during his stay he was caressed by many of the principal nobility. He naturally imitated the easy and elegant politeness prevalent among the great, which is one of the ornaments of civilized society; he adopted the manners, occupations, and amusements of his companions in general, and gave many proofs of a quick perception and a lively fancy. But the book’s verdict on his treatment is severe. He appears to have been treated while he resided in England rather as a fashionable exhibition than as a rational being. No attention seems to have been paid to enriching his mind with useful knowledge, such as might have rendered him a valuable acquisition to his country on his return thither; no means were used to instruct him in agriculture, or any mechanical art, or useful manufacture; and, above all, to possess him with a moral sense—to teach him the exalted ideas of virtue and the sublime principles of revealed religion. After a stay of two years in England, and having been inoculated for the small-pox, he embarked with Captain Cook on the voyage that would carry him home.
The book’s conclusion, then, is not a summary of geographical findings but a judgment on the encounter itself. The voyages had established certain knowledge of the world’s surface and had made Europe acquainted with millions of human beings. They had shown that mankind does not appear degraded below its supposed rank in the scale of moral being. But they had also shown that the Europeans who carried this knowledge home were not always wise in what they did with the people they found. The failure to teach Omai anything useful, the shooting of the Marquesan thief, the broken treaty, the seeds that would not grow—these are set down without moralizing, but they accumulate into a quiet indictment. The book ends with Omai’s embarkation, a man carried across the world and back again, changed by the journey in ways the narrative leaves the reader to imagine.
Significance
The book’s significance lies in what it represents as much as in what it says. It is a work of synthesis from the heroic age of Pacific exploration, written for readers who would never see the islands themselves and who depended on compilations like this one for their picture of the world. Its method—quoting the voyagers, comparing their accounts, weighing probabilities, and drawing general conclusions about human nature—is characteristic of eighteenth-century philosophical history. Its subject matter, the manners and customs of the South Sea islanders, became one of the central intellectual preoccupations of the European Enlightenment, and the book’s insistence that these peoples were fully human, capable of virtue and vice, generosity and theft, was part of a larger argument about the unity of mankind that would shape moral and political thought for generations.
The book also preserves testimony that might otherwise have been lost. Its detailed accounts of Easter Island’s statues, of the Marquesan ornaments and weapons, of Tahitian eating customs and the arreoy society, of the introduction of goats and cats and the failure of European seeds, are drawn from the journals of Cook, Forster, Parkinson, Hawkesworth, and Bougainville, and they remain part of the historical record of first contact. Its treatment of Omai—his reception in England, his patronage by the earl of Sandwich and Banks, his introduction to the king at Kew, and the book’s judgment that he was treated as a fashionable exhibition rather than a rational being—is one of the earliest and most clear-eyed assessments of what the encounter between Europe and the Pacific actually amounted to. The work closes with his embarkation for home, a final image of a man carried across the world and back, and of a century that had gone looking for new worlds and found, instead, a mirror in which to see itself.
