1773' UOUND THE WORLD. 191 



thought M. Bougainville came from Pretane, as well 

 as every other ship which has touched at the isle. 



Were it not for this assertion of the natives, and 

 none of Captain Wallis's people being affected with 

 the venereal disease, either while they were at Ota- 

 heite, or after they left it, I should have concluded 

 that, long before these islanders were visited by 

 Europeans, this, or some disease which is near akin 

 to it, had existed amongst them ; for I have heard 

 them speak of people dying of a disorder which we 

 interpreted to be the pox, before that period ; but 

 be this as it will, it is now far less common amongst 

 them than it was in the year 176*9, when I first 

 visited these isles. They say they can cure it, and 

 so it fully appears ; for, notwithstanding most of my 

 people made pretty free with the women, very few 

 of them were afterwards affected with the disorder ; 

 and those who were had it in so slight a manner 

 that it was easily removed ; but amongst the natives, 

 whenever it turns to a pox, they tell us it is incur- 

 able. Some of our people pretend to have seen 

 some of them who had this last disorder in a high 

 degree ; but the surgeon, who made it his business 

 to enquire, could never satisfy himself in this point. 

 These people are, and were before the Europeans 

 visited them, very subject to scrophulous diseases ; 

 so that a seaman might easily mistake one disorder 

 for another. 



The island ofOtaheite which, in the years I767 

 and I768, as it were, swarmed with hogs and fowls, 

 was now so ill supplied with these animals, that hardly 

 any thing could induce the owners to part with them. 

 The few they had at this time among them, seemed 

 to be at the disposal of the kings ; for while we lay 

 at Oaitipiha Bay, in the kingdom of Tiarrabou, or 

 lesser Peninsula, every hog or fowl we saw, w r e 

 were told, belonged to Waheatooa ; and all we saw 

 in the kingdom of Opoureonu, or the greater Pe- 

 ninsula, belonged to Otoo. During the seventeen 



