1777- THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 425 



But the most considerable islands in this neigh- 

 bourhood that we now heard of (and we heard a 

 great deal about them), are Hamoa, Vavaoo, and 

 Feejee. Each of these was represented to us as 

 larger than Tongataboo. No European, that we 

 know of, has as yet seen any one of them. Tasman, 

 indeed, lays down in his chart an island nearly in the 

 situation where I suppose Vavaoo to be ; that is, 

 about the latitude of 19. * But, then, that island 

 is there marked as a very small one ; whereas 

 Vavaoo, according to the united testimony of all our 

 friends at Tongataboo, exceeds the size of their own 

 island, and has high mountains. I should certainly 

 have visited it ; and have accompanied Feenou from 

 Hapaee, if he had not then discouraged me, by re- 

 presenting it to be very inconsiderable, and without 

 any harbour. But Poulaho, the king, afterward 

 assured me, that it was a large island ; and that it 

 not only produced every thing in common with 

 Tongataboo, but had the peculiar advantage of pos- 

 sessing several streams of fresh water, with as good a 

 harbour as that which we found at his capital island. 

 He offered to attend me if I would visit it ; adding, 

 that, if I did not find every thing agreeing with his 

 representation, I might kill him. I had not the least 

 doubt of the truth of his intelligence ; and was satis- 

 fied that Feenou, from some interested view, at- 

 tempted to deceive me. 



Keppel's Island our Neeootabootaboo. The last is one of the large 

 islands marked in the foregoing list. The reader, who has been 

 already apprized of the variations of our people in writing down 

 what the natives pronounced, will hardly doubt that Kottejeea and 

 Kootahee are the same. 



. * Neither Dalrymple nor Campbell, in their accounts of Tas- 

 man's voyage, take any particular notice of his having seen such 

 an island. The chart here referred to by Captain Cook is pro- 

 bably Mr. Dalrymple's, in his Collection of Voyages, where Tas- 

 man's track is marked accurately ; and several very small spots of 

 land are laid down in the situation here mentioned. 



