will, in a very short time after our
leaving him, like Oedidee, and the visiter of Lima, return to his own
native garments.[5]

[Footnote 5: Captain Cook's remark has often been exemplified in other
instances. The tendency to revert to barbarism is so strong, as to
need to be continually checked by the despotism of refined manners,
and all the healthful emulations of civilized societies. Perhaps the
rather harsh observation of Dr Johnson, that there is always a great
deal of _scoundrelism_ in a low man, is more strictly applicable to
the cases of savages in general, than to even the meanest member of
any cultivated community. But in the case of a superiorly endowed
individual situate amongst a mass of ruder beings, to all of whom he
is attached by the strongest ties of affection and early acquaintance,
another powerfully deranging cause is at work in addition to the
natural tendency to degenerate, viz. the necessity of accommodating
himself to established customs and opinions. The former agent alone,
we know, has often degraded Europeans. Is it to be thought wonderful
then, that, where both principles operate, a man of Omai's character
should speedily relinquish foreign acquirements, and retrograde into
his original barbarity?--E.]

In the morning of the 27th, a man came from Oheitepeha, and told us,
that two Spanish ships had anchored in that bay the night before; and,
in confirmation of this intelligence, he produced a piece of coarse
blue cloth, which, he said, he got out of one of the ships, and which,
indeed, to appearance, was almost quite new. He added, that Mateema
was in one of the ships, and that they were to come down to Matavai
in a day or two. Some other circumstances which he mentioned, with
the foregoing ones, gave the story so much the air of truth, that I
dispatched Lieutenant Williamson in a boat, to look into Oheitepeha
bay; and, in the mean time, I put the ships into a proper posture
of defence. For, though England and Spain were in peace when I left
Europe, for aught I knew, a different scene might, by this time, have
opened. However, on farther enquiry, we had reason to think that the
fellow who brought the intelligence had imposed upon us; and this was
put beyond all doubt, when Mr Williamson returned next day, who made
his report to me, that he had been at Oheitepeha, and found that no
ships were there now, and that none had been there since we left it.
The people of this part of the island wh