well with that
assigned in the accounts we have of Tasman's voyage, to his Prince
William's Islands.[174]

[Footnote 174: Tasman saw eighteen or twenty of these small islands,
every one of which was surrounded with sands, shoals, and rocks. They
are also called in some charts, Heemskirk's Banks. See Dalrymple's
Collection of Voyages to the South Pacific Ocean, vol. ii. p. 38, and
Campbell's edition of Harris's, vol. i. p. 325.--D.]

We have also very good authority to believe that Keppel's and
Boscawen's Island, two of Captain Wallis's discoveries in 1765, are
comprehended in our list; and that they are not only well known to these
people, but are under the same sovereign. The following information
seemed to me decisive as to this: Upon my enquiring one day of Poulaho,
the king, in what manner the inhabitants of Tongataboo had acquired the
knowledge of iron, and from what quarter they had procured a small iron
tool which I had seen amongst them when I first visited their island,
during my former voyage, he informed me, that they had received this
iron from an island which he called Neeootabootaboo. Carrying my
enquiries further, I then desired to know whether he had ever been
informed from whom the people of Neeootabootaboo had got it. I found him
perfectly acquainted with its history. He said that one of those
islanders sold a club for five nails, to a ship which had touched there,
and that these five nails afterward were sent to Tongataboo. He added,
that this was the first iron known amongst them, so that what Tasman
left of that metal must have been worn out, and forgot long ago. I was
very particular in my enquiries about the situation, size, and form of
the island; expressing my desire to know when this ship had touched
there, how long she staid, and whether any more were in company. The
leading facts appeared to be fresh in his memory. He said that there was
but one ship; that she did not come to an anchor, but left the island
after her boat had been on shore. And from many circumstances which he
mentioned, It could not be many years since this had happened. According
to his information, there are two islands near each other, which he
himself had been at. The one he described as high and peaked, like Kao,
and he called it Kootahee; the other, where the people of the ship
landed, called Neeootabootaboo, he represented as much lower. He added,
that the natives of both are the same sort of people with those of
To