230 cook's first voyage 1769. 



patient is temperate, nothing more is necessary as an 

 aid to nature in the cure of the worst wound, than 

 the keeping it clean. 



Their commerce with the inhabitants of Europe 

 has, however, already entailed upon them that dread- 

 ful curse which avenged the inhumanities committed 

 by the Spaniards in America, the venereal disease. 

 As it is certain that no European vessel besides our 

 own, except the Dolphin, and the two that were 

 under the command of Mons. Bougainville, ever 

 visited this island, it must have been brought either 

 by one of them or by us. That it was not brought by 

 the Dolphin, Captain Wallis has demonstrated in the 

 account of her voyage, (Vol. I. p. 323, 324.), and 

 nothing is more certain than that when we arrived, 

 it had made most dreadful ravages in the island. 

 One of our people contracted it within five days after 

 we went on shore, and by the enquiries among the 

 natives, which this occasioned, we learnt, when we 

 came to understand a little of their language, that it 

 had been brought by the vessels which had been 

 there about fifteen months before us, and had lain on 

 the east side of the island. They distinguished it by 

 a name of the same import with rotte7i7iess, but of a 

 more extensive signification, and described, in the 

 most pathetic terms, the suiferings of the first victims 

 to its rage, and told us that it caused the hair and 

 the nails to fall off, and the flesh to rot from the 

 bones : that it spread a universal terror and con- 

 sternation among them, so that the sick were aban- 

 doned by their nearest relations, lest the calamity 

 should spread by contagion, and left to perish alone in 

 such misery as till then had never been known among 

 them. We had some reason, however, to hope that 

 they had found out a specific to cure it : during our 

 stay upon the island we saw none in whom it had made 

 a great progress, and one who went from us infected, 

 returned after a short time in perfect health ; and by 

 this it appeared either that the disease had cured 



