ressed. This incident, and that of the wounding of Receveur at
Manua, are nearly all we are told about him from the commander. But he
struck King as being "a man of letters and genius." He was a collector
of natural curiosities, having under his care "a great number of
philosophical instruments." King's few lines, giving the impression
derived from a necessarily brief conversation, seem to bring the Abbe
before us in a flash. "A man of letters and genius": how gladly we
would know more of one of whom those words could be written! Receveur
died shortly before Laperouse sailed away, and was buried at the foot
of a tree, to which were nailed a couple of boards bearing an
inscription. Governor Phillip, when the boards fell down, had
the inscription engraved on a copper plate. The tomb, which is now so
prominent an object at Botany Bay, was erected by the Baron de
Bougainville in 1825. The memorials to the celebrated navigator and the
simple scholar stand together.

King, in common with Tench, records the admiring way in which Laperouse
spoke of Cook. He "informed me that every place where he has touched or
been near, he found all the astronomical and nautical works of Captain
Cook to be very exact and true, and concluded by saying, 'Enfin,
Monsieur Cook a tant fait qu'il ne m'a rien laisse a faire que d'
admirer ses oeuvres.'" (In short, Mr. Cook has done so much that he has
left me nothing to do but to admire his works).

There is very little more to tell about those few weeks spent at Botany
Bay before the navigator and his companions "vanished trackless into
blue immensity," as Carlyle puts it. A fragment of conversation is
preserved by Tench. A musket was fired one day, and the natives
marvelled less at the noise than at the fact that the bullet made a
hole in a piece of bark at which it was aimed. To calm them, "an
officer whistled the air of 'Malbrook,' which they appeared highly
charmed with, and greeted him with equal pleasure and readiness. I may
remark here," adds the Captain of Marines, "what I was afterwards told
by Monsieur de Perousse" (so he mis-spells the name) "that the natives
of California, as throughout all the isles of the Pacific Ocean,
and in short wherever he had been, seemed equally touched and delighted
with this little plaintive air." It is gratifying to be able to record
Captain Tench's high opinion of the efficacy of the tune, which is
popularly known nowadays as "We won't go home till morning.