e of his own people. The butcher had taken a fancy
to a stone hatchet in the hands of the wife of the above-named chief,
and because she refused to give it to him for a nail, he threatened to
kill her. Being proved guilty of this crime, as well as of an
infraction of the rules drawn up by the commander, he received a severe
flogging, in the presence of a number of the natives. It speaks well
for their kind feelings that when they saw the first strokes given they
begged that the rest of his punishment might be remitted, and when
Captain Cook would not consent to this they burst into tears. Indeed,
numberless instances proved that these people were mere children of
impulse. They had never been taught to disguise or suppress their
feelings; easily affected by all the changes of the passing hour, their
sorrows were transient, and their joy and pleasure speedily excited.
Unaccustomed to dwell on the past, or to allow themselves to be troubled
with thoughts of the future, all they desired was to gratify the desire
of the moment. About this time--the beginning of May--an event occurred
which threatened disappointment to the object of the expedition. This
was the disappearance, from the middle of the fort, of the quadrant, a
large instrument in a case, on which the possibility of making the
proposed observations entirely depended. Search was instantly made in
every direction, and at length, through the intervention of the friendly
chiefs, portions were discovered in the possession of the natives. They
had been carried off by different people, but fortunately, not broken,
and finally all the parts were collected and the instruments set up. At
the suggestion of the Earl of Morton, before leaving home, Captain Cook
sent out two parties to observe the transit of Venus from different
situations--one to the east, the other to the westward. The anxiety for
such weather as would be favourable to the success of the experiment was
powerfully felt by all parties concerned; they could not sleep the
preceding night; but their apprehensions were removed by the sun's
rising without a cloud on the eventful morning of June 3. The weather
continued with equal clearness throughout the day, so that the
observations at each post were successfully made. At the fort Captain
Cook, Mr Green, and Dr Solander were stationed. The passage of the
planet Venus over the sun's disc was observed with great advantage.

The explorers had been, from t