off in his canoe. He brought back strange tales of what he had seen. It
was a floating island; there were two rivers flowing on it (the pumps),
and two plantations in which grew taro and sugar-cane and bread-fruit,
and the keel scraped the bottom of the sea, for he dived as deep as he
could go without finding it.

Williams has fallen into two errors in his account (p. 171). In the same
breath he claims for himself the discovery of Rarotonga, in 1823, and
announces this to have been a visit of the _Bounty_ after she was taken
by the mutineers, _i.e._ in April, 1789. Rarotonga was, in fact,
discovered by the ship _Seringapatam_ in 1814, though Williams may have
been the first to land. The tradition must have referred to Bligh's visit
to Aitutaki before the mutiny when the decks were encumbered with
bread-fruit, for we know that the first thing the mutineers did after
setting their captain adrift was to throw all the bread-fruit plants
overboard, and that they steered direct for Tahiti.

[42-1] Discovered by Cook in his second voyage. There are nine small
islands connected by a reef, covered with trees, but destitute of water.

[43-1] Sufficient for thirty days at most. In the face of the danger of
parting company, with the _Pandora_ overloaded with stores, and the
tender too feebly manned to wait at so dangerous a rendezvous as the
Friendly Islands, Edwards showed very little foresight in neglecting to
provision the tender for an independent voyage. His neglect nearly cost
the crew their lives.

[44-1] See p. 126.

[46-1] Fakaafo or Bowditch Island, whence the present permanent
inhabitants migrated.

[46-2] Nukunono, a new discovery, another of the Union Group. It was
surveyed by the American Exploring Expedition in 1840, and was found to
be 7-2/10 miles long, N. and S., and 5 miles E. and W.

[48-1] The actual position is 9.5' S. Latitude and 171.38' W. Longitude.

[49-1] Savaii in the Samoa Group. If not the 'Beauman' Islands seen by
Roggewein in 1721, they were discovered by Bougainville in 1768 and
visited by La Perouse in 1787. Freycinet also visited them before
Edwards.

[49-2] Mata-atua Harbour. There is no river there except after heavy
rain.

[49-3] He had a finger cut off in mourning for Finau Ulukalala, who must
have died in 1790.

[50-1] La Perouse and Kotzebue call it Pola.

[50-2] Upolu on which is Apia, the present capital of Samoa.

[50-3] Upolu is the native name, but it has been called O