4M COOK'S VOYAGE TO JULY, 



quainted with its history. He said that one of those 

 islanders sold a club for five nails to a ship which had 

 touched there ; and that these five nails afterward 

 were sent to Tongataboo. He added that this was 

 the first iron known amongst them ; so that, what 

 Tasman left of that metal must have been worn out, 

 and forgot long ago. I was very particular in my in- 

 quiries about the situation, size, and form of the 

 island ; expressing my desire to know when this ship 

 had touched there j how long she staid ; and whether 

 any more were in company. The leading facts ap- 

 peared to be fresh in his memory. He said that there 

 was but one ship ; that she did not come to an 

 anchor, but left the island after her boat had been on 

 shore. And from many circumstances which he 

 mentioned, it could not be many years since this had 

 happened. According to his information, there are 

 two islands near each other, which he himself had 

 been at. The one he described as high and peaked 

 like Kao, and he called it Kootahee ; the other, 

 where the people of the ship landed, called Neeoota- 

 bootaboo, he represented as much lower. He added, 

 that the natives of both are the same sort of people 

 with those of Tongataboo ; built their canoes in the 

 same manner ; that their islands had hogs and fowls ; 

 and, in general, the same vegetable productions. 

 The ship so pointedly referred to in this convers- 

 ation could be no other than the Dolphin ; the only 

 single ship from Europe, as far as we have ever 

 learned, that had touched, of late years, at any island 

 in this part of the Pacific Ocean, prior to my former 

 visit to the Friendly Islands. # 



* See Captain Wallis's Voyage, in Hawkesworth^s Collection,, 

 vol. i. p. 492 494. Captain Wallis there calls both these islands 

 high ones. But the superior height of one of them may be inferred, 

 from his saying, that it appears like a sugar-loaf. This strongly 

 marks its resemblance to Kao. From comparing Poulaho's intelli- 

 gence to Captain Cook, with Captain Wallis's account, it seems to 

 be past all doubt, that Boscawen's Island is our Kootahee, and 



