1769. ROUND THE WORLD. 125 



This day we learnt the Indian name of the island, 

 which is Otaheite, and by that name I shall here- 

 after distinguish it: but after great pains taken we 

 found it utterly impossible to teach the Indians to 

 pronounce our names ; we had, therefore, new names, 

 consisting of such sounds as they produced in the 

 attempt. They called me Toote ; Mr. Hicks, Hete ; 

 Mollineux they renounced in absolute despair, and 

 called the Master Boba, from his Christian name 

 Robert ; Mr. Gore was Toarro ; Dr. Solan der, To- 

 rano ; and Mr. Banks, Tapane ; Mr. Green, Eteree ; 

 Mr. Parkinson, Patini ; Mr. Sporing, Polini ; Pe- 

 tersgill, Petrodero ; and in this manner they had now 

 formed names for almost every man in the ship : in 

 some, however, it was not easy to find any traces of 

 the original, and they were perhaps not mere arbi- 

 trary sounds formed upon the occasion, but signifi- 

 cant words in their own language. Monkhouse, the 

 Midshipman, who commanded the party that killed 

 the man for stealing the musket, they called Matte; 

 not merely by an attempt to imitate in sound the first 

 syllable of Monkhouse, but because Matte signifies 

 dead; and this probably might be the case with others. 



