18^ cook's first voyage JULY, 



the ship was very early crowded with our friends, and 

 surrounded by a multitude of canoes, which were 

 filled with the natives of an inferior class. Between 

 eleven and twelve we weighed anchor, and as soon 

 as the ship was under sail, the Indians on board took 

 their leaves, and wept, with a decent and silent 

 sorrow, in which there was something very striking 

 and tender : the people in the canoes, on the con- 

 trary, seemed to vie with each other in the loudness 

 of their lamentations, which we considered rather as 

 affectation than grief. Tupia sustained himself in 

 this scene with a firmness and resolution truly ad- 

 mirable : he wept, indeed, but the effort that he 

 made to conceal his tears, concurred, with them, to 

 do him honour. He sent his last present, a shirt, 

 by Otheothea, to Potomai, Tootahah's favourite 

 mistress, and then went with Mr. Banks to the mast- 

 head, waving to the canoes as long as they continued 

 in sight. 



Thus we took leave of Otaheite, and its inhabitants, 

 after a stay of just three months ; for much the 

 greater part of the time we lived together in the 

 most cordial friendship, and a perpetual reciproca- 

 tion of good offices. The accidental differences 

 which now and then happened, could not be more 

 sincerely regretted on their part than they were on 

 ours : the principal causes were such as necessarily 

 resulted from our situation and circumstances, in 

 conjunction with the infirmities of human nature, 

 from our not being able perfectly to understand each 

 other, and from the disposition of the inhabitants to 

 theft, which we could not at all times bear with or 

 prevent. They had not, however, except in one 

 instance, been attended with any fatal consequence ; 

 and to that accident were owing the measures that 

 I took to prevent others of the same kind. I hoped, 

 indeed, to have availed myself of the impression which 

 had been made upon them by the lives that had been 

 sacrificed in their contest with the Dolphin, so as 



