tronomy and the theory and
practice of navigation, with whom the Royal Society associated Mr.
Charles Green, who had long been assistant to Dr. Bradley, the
astronomer royal, to aid him in the observation of the transit. Mr.
Banks, a private gentleman of good fortune, who afterwards became the
valuable and distinguished President of the Royal Society, and Dr.
Solander, a Swedish gentleman of great acquirements, particularly in
natural history, accompanied Lieutenant Cook on this interesting voyage.
The islands of Marquesas de Mendoza, or those of Rotterdam or Amsterdam,
were proposed by the Royal Society as proper places for making the
observation. While fitting out, however, Captain Wallis returned from
his expedition, and strongly recommended as most suitable for the
purpose, Port Royal Harbour, on an island he had discovered, to which he
had given the name of 'King George's Island,' and which has since been
known by its native name, _Otaheite_ or _Tahite_.[1]

This lovely island is most intimately connected with the mutiny which
took place on board the _Bounty_, and with the fate of the mutineers and
their innocent offspring. Its many seducing temptations have been urged
as one, if not the main, cause of the mutiny, which was supposed, at
least by the commander of that ship, to have been excited by--

Young hearts which languish'd for some sunny isle,
Where summer years, and summer women smile,
Men without country, who, too long estranged,
Had found no native home, or found it changed,
And, half uncivilized, preferr'd the cave
Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave.

It may be proper, therefore, as introductory to the present narrative,
to give a general description of the rich and spontaneous gifts which
Nature has lavished on this once 'happy island;'--of the simple and
ingenuous manners of its natives,--and of those allurements which were
supposed, erroneously however, to have occasioned the unfortunate
catastrophe alluded to;--to glance at

The nymphs' seducements and the magic bower,

as they existed at the period of the first intercourse between the
Otaheitans and the crews of those ships, which carried to their shores,
in succession, Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook.

The first communication which Wallis had with these people was
unfortunately of a hostile nature. Having approached with his ship close
to the shore, the usual symbol of peace and friendship, a branch of