ch was Omai's first reception
amongst his countrymen. I own, I never expected it would be otherwise;
but still I was in hopes that the valuable cargo of presents with
which the liberality of his friends in England had loaded him, would
be the means of raising him into consequence, and of making him
respected, and even courted by the first persons throughout the extent
of the Society Islands. This could not but have happened, had he
conducted himself with any degree of prudence; but, instead of it, I
am sorry to say that he paid too little regard to the repeated advice
of those who wished him well, and suffered himself to be duped by
every designing knave. From the natives who came off to us, in
the course of this day, we learnt that two ships had twice been in
Oheitepeha Bay, since my last visit to this island in 1774, and that
they had left animals there such as we had on board. But, on farther
enquiry, we found they were only hogs, dogs, goats, one bull, and the
male of some other animal, which, from the imperfect description now
given us, we could not find out. They told us that these ships had
come from a place called _Reema_, by which we guessed that Lima,
the capital of Peru, was meant, and that these late visitors were
Spaniards. We were informed that the first time they came, they built
a house, and left four men behind them, viz. two priests, a boy or
servant, and a fourth person called Mateema, who was much spoken of
at this time, carrying away with them, when they sailed, four of
the natives; that, in about ten months, the same two ships returned,
bringing back two of the islanders, the other two having died at Lima,
and that, after a short stay, they took away their own people; but
that the house which they had built was left standing.

The important news of red feathers being on board our ships, having
been conveyed on shore by Omai's friends, day had no sooner begun to
break, next morning, than we were surrounded by a multitude of canoes,
crowded with people, bringing hogs and fruits to market. At first,
a quantity of feathers, not greater than what might be got from a
tom-tit, would purchase a hog of forty or fifty pounds weight. But, as
almost every body in the ships was possessed of some of this precious
article of trade, it fell in its value above five hundred per cent.
before night. However, even then, the balance was much in our favour,
and red feathers continued to preserve their superiority over ev