A HISTORY OF TAHITI 113 



ing his own charity in presenting her with a European gown. The 

 proceedings were, however, marred by the alarming action of the sur- 

 geon who suddenly removed his wig, causing the " ladies of the court " 

 to flee in terror from the hoifse. 



Purea, having recovered her composure, commanded her followers to 

 present Wallis with great quantities of bread fruit and many pigs and 

 believing her to be supreme over the entire Island he soon persuaded 

 himself that she had ceded her realm to him. Accordingly he hoisted 

 the British flag, saluted it with twenty-one guns, gave each of his men 

 a drink of rum mixed with the water of a Tahitian brook and thus sol- 

 emnly took possession under the name " King George the Third's 

 Island." 



As a matter of fact, Purea was vainly endeavoring to induce Wallis 

 to visit her own district Papara, hoping through the influence of her 

 supernatural guest to augment her own authority, for the natives be- 

 lieved his ship to be a floating island fllled with vindictive demons who 

 had control of thunder and lightning ; but he understood not a word, and 

 man-like assumed that her "inconsolable weeping" was due to admira- 

 tion for himself and sorrow over his intended departure. Thus on July 

 27 did this British ^'Eneas depart from his Pohmesian Dido never more 

 to see Tahiti. 



Soon after Wallis's departure Louis Antoine de Bougainville inde- 

 pendently discovered Tahiti. He was circumnavigating the globe, com- 

 manding the French frigate La Boudeuse, and the transport UEtoile, 

 and his 200 men were worn with the sea, scurvy threatening. Happy 

 indeed were the French when, on April 2, 1768, from a distance of fifty 

 miles they saw the peak of Orohena, as Wallis had sighted it eight 

 months previously. Favored by the southern trades, they sailed along 

 the shore to anchor on April G, off Hitiaa ; there to remain for a respite 

 of ten days. In his fascinating "Voyage autour du Monde" published 

 in Paris in 1771, Bougainville devoted two chapters to "Taiti," or "La 

 Nouvelle Cythere," as he officially named it, furnishing an impassioned 

 theme for French philosophy. 



Bougainville was a keen and sympathetic observer and he made the 

 most of his time from the mo]nent when on April 4 the canoes ventured 

 out to his ships, their chiefs bearing clusters of banana leaves in token 

 of friendship. A hospital was established on shore for the scurv}^- 

 ridden sailors, and most friendly intercourse was established between 

 them and the natives, who doubtless profited by their experience with 

 Wallis to refrain from offending the new visitors. Yet, according to 

 Cook, an infliction worse than Wallis's cannon was turned upon the un- 

 suspecting islanders, for the ravages of a virulent infection of syphilis 

 followed closely upon the departure of the French. Corruption and 

 death had entered never to leave the land, and the once gigantic race of 



