324* cook's voyage to may, 



chief* of some note, whom we well knew, arrived 

 from Annamooka, and declared that no ship was at 

 that island, nor had been since our leaving it. The 

 propagator of the report, finding himself detected 

 in a falsehood, instantly withdrew, and we saw no 

 more of him. What end the invention of this tale 

 could answer, it was not easy to conjecture; unless 

 we suppose it to have been artfully contrived, to 

 get us removed from the one island to the other. 



In my walk on the 25th, I happened to step into 

 a house, where a woman was dressing the eyes of a 

 young child, who seemed blind ; the eyes being much 

 inflamed, and a thin film spread over them. The in- 

 struments she used were two slender wooden probes, 

 with which she had brushed the eyes so as to make 

 them bleed. It seems worth mentioning, that the 

 natives of these islands should attempt an operation 

 of this sort ; though I entered the house too late, 

 to describe exactly how this female oculist employed 

 the wretched tools she had to work with. 



I was fortunate enough to see a different oper- 

 ation going on in the same house, of which I can 

 give a tolerable account. I found there another 

 woman shaving a child's head with a shark's tooth 

 stuck into the end of a piece of stick. I observed, 

 that she first wet the hair with a rag dipped in 

 water, applying her instrument to that part which 

 she had previously soaked. The operation seemed 

 to give no pain to the child, although the hair was 

 taken off as close as if one of our razors had been 

 employed. Encouraged by what I now saw, I soon 

 after tried one of these singular instruments upon 

 myself, and found it to be an excellent succedanewn. 

 However, the men of these islands have recourse 

 to another contrivance when they shave their beards. 

 The operation is performed with two shells, one of 

 which they place under a small part of the beard, 

 and with the other applied above, they scrape that 



